progress.
[‘We got a powerful level of seven dBm. The signal strength is eighteen decibels higher than the next nearest tower. The handset is less than a hundred and fifty metres away from the base station…’]
‘Are you still there, Gideon? What will I tell Chloe?’
He hesitates. ‘Tell her I gave Tinkle to the Hahns.’
‘She’ll be pleased.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Like I said, she’s on her way.’
‘This is some sort of trick.’
‘She told me about a postcard that she wrote to you from Turkey.’
‘I didn’t get a postcard.’
‘Her mother wouldn’t let her send it. Remember how you taught her to snorkel? She went snorkelling off a boat and saw underwater ruins. She thought it might be Atlantis, the lost city, but she wanted to ask you.’
‘Let me talk to her?’
‘You’ll talk to her when I talk to Charlie.’
‘Don’t fuck with me, Joe. Put Chloe on the line. I want to speak to her now.’
‘I told you, she’s not here.’
Oliver’s voice is in my ear again:
[‘We have BMS signals from three towers. I can estimate DOA but he keeps moving, leaving the range of one tower and getting picked up by another. You have to make him stop.’]
‘They were living in Greece. But they came home a few days ago. They’re being protected.’
‘I knew they were alive.’
‘Your voice keeps breaking up, Gideon. You might want to stop somewhere.’
‘I’d prefer to keep moving.’
I’ve exhausted everything I can remember from Chloe’s journal. I don’t know how long I can keep up the charade. On the far side of the incident room, Ruiz appears, half-running and out of breath. Behind him, Helen Chambers clutches her daughter’s hand and struggles to keep up. Chloe looks goggle-eyed at the speed with which she’s been woken, dressed and brought from the warmth of her bed to this place.
Gideon is still on the line.
‘Your daughter is here.’
‘Prove it.’
‘Not until I talk to Charlie and Julianne.’
‘You think I’m an idiot. You think I don’t know what you’re trying to do.’
‘She has blonde hair. Brown eyes. She’s wearing skinny-leg jeans and a green cardigan. She’s with her mother. They’re talking to Detective Inspector Cray.’
‘Let me talk to Chloe.’
‘No.’
‘Prove she’s there.’
‘Let me speak to Charlie or Julianne.’
He grinds his teeth. ‘I want you to understand something, Joe. Not everyone you love is going to live. I was going to let you choose which one, but you’re pissing me off.’
‘Let me speak to my wife and daughter.’
His cold composed unyielding tone has changed. He’s enraged. Ranting. He screams down the line.
‘LISTEN, YOU COCKSUCKER, PUT MY DAUGHTER ON THE PHONE OR I’LL BURY YOUR PRECIOUS WIFE SO DEEP YOU'LL NEVER FIND HER BODY,'
I can imagine his mouth twisting and flecks of spit flying. Brakes squeal and a car horn sounds in the background. He’s losing concentration.
Oliver Rabb is also talking to me.
[‘He’s just been handed on to a new tower. Signal strength five dBm and falling. Radius three hundred yards. You have to make him stop moving.’]
I nod through the glass partition.
‘Calm down, Gideon.’
‘Don’t tell me what to do. Put Chloe on the line!’
‘What do I get in return?’
‘You get to choose if your wife or your daughter survive.’
‘I want both of them back.’
I hear a tight-lipped laugh. ‘I’m sending you a souvenir. You can have it framed.’
‘What sort of souvenir?’
The mobile vibrates against my ear. I hold the handset at arm’s length, as though it might explode. An image appears in the small backlit square. Julianne, naked and bound, her body as pale as candle wax, lies in a box with her mouth and eyes taped shut and clods of earth crumbling over her stomach and thighs.
A thin rancid stink of fear fills my nostrils and something small and dark scuttles inside my chest, burrowing into the chambers of my heart. I can hear it now: the sound Gideon talked about. A tiny creature crying softly into an endless night. The sound of a mind breaking.
‘Stay with me, Joe,’ he says, in a soft insinuating tone. ‘She was still alive when I last saw her. I’ll still let you choose.’
‘What have you done?’
‘I gave her what she wanted.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘She wanted to take her daughter’s place.’
The grotesque image is beyond words. My imagination paints pictures instead. And in my mind’s eye I see Julianne’s breathing body, sipping the darkness, unable to move, her hair spread out beneath her head.
‘Please, please, don’t do this,’ I beg, my voice breaking.
‘Put my daughter on the phone.’
‘Wait.’
Ruiz is standing in front of me. Chloe and Helen are with him. He pulls two chairs to the desk and motions for them to sit. Helen is dressed in jeans and a striped top. Clutching Chloe’s hand, she sits with her head drawn down between her shoulders, her face a crumpled mask. Worn down. Defeated.
I cover the phone. ‘Thank you.’
She nods.
Chloe’s blonde fringe has fallen across her eyes. She doesn’t push it back. It is a physical barrier she can hide behind.
‘He wants to talk to Chloe.’
‘What’s she going to say?’ asks Helen.
‘She just has to say hello.’
‘Is that it?’
‘Yes.’
Chloe rocks her legs beneath the chair, chewing at a fingernail. A baggy green cardigan hangs down to her thighs and narrow jeans make her legs look like sticks in denim.
I motion to her. She circles the desk on tiptoes, as if frightened of bruising her heels. I cover the mouthpiece and silently mouth the words I want her to say.
Then I raise my hand to Oliver, giving him a countdown by closing my fingers one at a time. Five… four… three…
Chloe takes the handset and whispers, ‘Hello, Daddy, it’s me.’
…two… one…
I drop my arm. Through the window Oliver presses a button or flips a switch and a dozen mobile phone towers are silenced.
I can picture Gideon staring at his handset, wondering what happened to the signal. His daughter was right there but her words were snatched away. Fifteen police units are within a hundred and fifty yards of his last known
