Due Date Read online

  “Got the money?” the man asked, his fake accent muffled by a hand or something over the microphone.

  “Let me speak to her.”

  “You'll speak to her soon enough.” he said. “Do you have the money?”

  “Yes.” I said, gruffly.

  “Good.” he said. “Do you know The Broad Walk in Regent's Park?”

  I thought for a moment. It had been years since I'd last been to Regent's Park, but figured it wouldn't be hard to find.

  “Yes.”

  “Be there at five A.M. Throw the bag over the bridge and walk away. Thirty minutes later we'll call and tell you where to find your wife.”

  “That's not good enough. I want to speak to --”

  I took a look at the phone, the call had been cut off after his last statement.

  I rested the phone down on the coffee table and looked at the money in the bag. Eight hours until I'd give them the money. Eight and a half hours without sleep or food until Lisa would be back in my arms.

  Assuming they could be trusted in the slightest.

  9

  The drive to Regent's Park was like navigating through a past life. I had gone to school in the area, and even though it had been over twenty years, I knew the roads intimately. Even though a lot of them had been redeveloped, gentrified, given facelifts and botox, each street and new establishment carried with it a memory. A prank played, an illicit cigarette smoked, a more illicit underage drink, a kiss and a grope. Distractions, each and every one, and all were extremely welcome.

  Pulling in on the corner of St Mark's Square, I parked up in front of the resident's parking bay, hoping that parking attendants wouldn't rise that early in the morning. Making my way down the street, bag clutched in my hand, I followed the road down and entered the park, directly on to the Broad Walk, which was a three metre wide bridge crossing over the canal below.

  I stood at the centre, looking over the water. The caller didn't mention which bank I was meant to drop the bag on. Investigating the far side, it didn't seem to have a walkway running along it, so I went to the edge closest to the road, lifting the bag up over the side of the bridge, trying to be sure to line it up with the pavement below.

  Something in my gut rumbled, warned me not to let go, not to drop it, told me that this wouldn't be the end, but I ignored it. Getting Lisa back was more important than anything else.

  I let the bag fall from my fingers and watched as it landed with a gentle thud on the walkway below. It sat there, unattended, and I watched, waited for someone to grab it.

  Nobody appeared. The bag just sat there, and I wanted to keep watch, or go down and check on it, stay there in case some stranger picked it up instead of the bastard it was meant for.

  A few minutes passed, and I saw no other people in the vicinity. It felt like I was being watched, monitored, as if they would only take the bag after I left. Took a step back from the edge of the bridge, then another, and turned to walk away, heart beating hard in my chest with every clicker-clack of footstep as I went back the way I came.

  As I got close to the street, there was a scuffle of boots from somewhere underneath. I pictured the same heavy feet that left scuffs all over my grandfather's books. I turned and went back to the edge of the bridge, watching a figure in a big black jacket and baseball cap grab the bag and run off down the walkway, round the corner where I remembered drinking cheap cider from a two litre plastic bottle with school friends so many years ago, off a small path there, leading up to the main road.

  I ran back to the car, jumping in the driver's seat and kicking the engine to life, careening round the corner to where the canal walkway met the road. As I drove up, a little Nissan Micra grumbled and sped off in the opposite direction. For a moment, I watched the path to the walkway, in case it was a coincidence of timing, but everything in my body was telling me I should U-turn and follow him.

  Swerving, and hitting the gas, I chased after the car, even though every inclination told me it was the wrong thing to do. Coming out on to the main street as the rush hour was slowly coming to life. The car was up ahead, and a lane to the left, its license plate obscured by the vehicles in-between. As soon as the lights changed I jammed the accelerator and switched lanes, to the horns and expletives of drivers behind me.

  They didn't matter, all that I cared about was following this guy and getting my wife back. There were still two cars between me and the Micra, but that was fine, and felt smart. I didn't want the driver, whoever he was, to know that I was pursuing.

  As the journey continued, one of the cars turned left, leaving just one between the two of us, then at the next set of lights, the Micra turned right whilst the driver in front of me went straight on. Without signalling, and to more honks of horns, I took the right and let up on the pedal, trailing behind, electric engine softly whirring as I followed the car. There was a chance he'd recognise the Tesla, there weren't that many about, and like Joe had said; “They must have planned this, done recon or whatever.” That recon would have likely included what car I owned.

  The Micra stopped at a T-junction at the end of the road, as other cars crossed by. I pulled in to a nearby parking space to hide myself from view. Waiting a moment for the Micra to turn, I swerved back out into the road and sped up down the street to follow him along, turning just as a car tried to cross, the other driver hitting the brakes just as he was about to plough into the side of me. I ignored his shouts and beeps and went down the street, where a red light had held up the Micra.

  It was a small road, a lane in either direction and no on-street parking. As I got closer and closer to the Micra, I desperately looked for a driveway or street I could turn down before coming up right on his tailpipe. There were no options. I had to stop behind him. I dropped my sun visor down and sat up tall, back straight, trying to obscure my face. Peeking out from behind the visor, I looked through the back window into the car ahead, the man in front didn't seem to notice me. Hid my face again, waiting for the light to change. Maybe he wasn't that smart, I thought. Maybe they hadn't done as much research as to check out what car I drove.

  Maybe.

  The light was still red, but the squeal of tyres made me pop up the visor, the Micra burning rubber as it weaved through traffic coming from the streets to our right and left. I hit the accelerator to follow him, but slammed the brake as soon as I came to the crossing, realising how many cars were coming and how fast.

  I'd have to be patient, I could still see him heading towards the end of the street. The lights on the road ahead shifted to amber and I slammed the pedal, narrowly missing a car trying to slip through before their light went red, just as the Micra took a right.

  I sped forwards, coming round the corner after him to see the car take a left. Again, I followed his path, snaking left and right through the suburban streets, each turn felt like it was getting closer, gaining ground. I tried to keep track of where we were, how we got there, but all the roads blurred together, a sea of terraced houses all looking alike.

  Up ahead he turned right and I floored the Tesla. I was going to catch him. Ram him if I had to. I was going to find out where the hell he had my wife.

  Hit the brakes, just as a bus hurtled past. I was at a main road, rush hour now in full effect. I couldn't see him, his car buried deep in the traffic heading towards or away from the Congestion Zone.

  Getting out the car, I ran up and down the lanes of thick traffic, going from car to car, trying to find the Micra, get a look at the driver, shout and scream at him if I had to, until someone would come to my aid, arrest him, force him to tell me where he had Lisa.

  It was no use. The car was gone.

  After ten minutes of going through the cars, coughing on exhaust fumes, I returned to the Tesla, a steady stream of angry drivers beeping at the abandoned vehicle. I fell down into the driver's seat, dejected, and slammed the door behind me, turning in to the traffic to make my way home.

  The phone rang through the bluetooth speakers. I clambe
red for it and accepted the call.

  “That was a big fucking mistake.” said the man, his accent still fake, but his voice no longer muffled as he drove, both hands assumedly on the wheel.

  “Where's Lisa?” I asked.

  “Oh, you won't see her for a while now, bitch!” he said, scoffing. “We want another fifty-thou.”

  “What?”

  “You gots two days.” The line went dead.

  I couldn't move, couldn't think.

  Every physical and mental function felt like it was frozen, accompanied by the score of car horns behind me. I had fucked up. It was all my fault. As it always was. Lisa constantly told me I needed to be less impulsive, less easy to give in to anger. Once again I had totally lost it. And this time, it was possibly the worst fuck up of all.

  Bursting into the house, I was consumed by anger, slamming the door behind me with a crash that echoed through the house. I threw my keys at the wall. They bounced off and hit a vase of wilting lilies on the shelf below, taking it to the floor on their way down, smashing on impact.

  I stared at the glass glistening as the pool of water made its way outwards from the point of impact across the hallway. An obvious, stupid analogy for what my anger was doing, what it always did; destroy beautiful, fragile things. I hopped over the puddle to the kitchen and got a cloth, trying to rein in the water as it attempted to escape across the floor, finding cracks beneath the wooden boards. I didn't notice the glass digging in to my palm until the water started running red with blood, and lifted my hand to find a shard embedded deep in the skin.

  It didn't have the effect I imagined when I was digging nails into my palms. I was numb, literally and figuratively, and tugged it out, sending small spatters of blood across the white wall. Grabbing the wet cloth, I tried to use it to stop the flow, but ended up stabbing myself with yet more splinters of glass. I threw the cloth at the puddle, spreading the water further, as much as it was absorbing it.

  In the kitchen I grabbed a paper towel, then another and another as the blood soaked through them, doubling and then tripling them over, watching them saturate with crimson. I took the towels away and looked at the cuts, blood lingering at the sliced skin, massing into balls, gaining weight until trickling down through the creases in my hand until falling to the floor.

  “This is what anger gets you...” I told myself, forcing my eyes to watch, letting the paper towel fall to the floor by my feet. I wasn't going to fuck up again.

  10

  Lisa had been under guard all night and day. Feigning sleep was no longer and option, they had become smarter since her escape attempt, so she had decided that if they were going to take turns in staying up all night to watch her, she was going to do her best to be well-rested, and have the advantage over her captors.

  The softer footsteps of the female abductor entered the room with some hot food. The scent of ubiquitously boiled vegetables was on the air, their aromas melded together by being stuck in the same pot for too long.

  “Are you hungry?” the woman asked.

  Lisa shook her head and tried to say 'no', but the gag was muffling any words she tried to get out.

  “You've got to eat, keep up your strength and all.” the woman said, resting a tray on the bedside table before leaning over to untie the gag. “Do you smell that?” she asked, lifting a forkful of something green and mashed to Lisa's mouth. “Smells good, doesn't it...”

  Lisa kept her lips tightly pursed and turned her head away, like a disobedient child, waiting for the woman to remove the fork. “Smells like you use too much vegetable stock instead of learning how to actually fucking cook.” she said, spitting the words out in a manner she thought Nina would be proud of.

  “That's not nice...” said the woman, lifting the fork up again.

  Lisa leant forward and bit the woman's finger.

  “Fuck's sake!” she said, pulling away. “I'm just trying to fucking help you!”

  “Then let me go!” Lisa said.

  “Not yet... But soon.” the woman grabbed Lisa's chin in her hand, fingers digging into her cheeks to force her lips to part, stuffing a forkful of mush into her mouth, following it with another.

  Lisa coughed and spluttered as the food was forced down her throat, half of it going the wrong way. She spat it up on to the woman.

  “Goddamn it!” she said, throwing the fork to the ground, slamming the tray on a bedside table, and leaving the room.

  Waiting for the footsteps to cross the threshold of the door, Lisa leaned down towards the tray and used the corner of it to pull up the blindfold, freeing her left eye from captivity, and looking around the bedroom. Her vision took a moment to adjust, but as the blur faded and she got accustomed to seeing further than the cotton tied a few millimetres from her eyes, the room became clear.

  It looked like she imagined decrepit council houses to look, unloved, uncared for. There was wallpaper coming off the top of the walls, its glue barely keeping it in place. The ceiling above was water damaged, ripples of grey and green where at some point there must have been a leak. The room was darker than she expected, curtains drawn, lights and lamps on around her.

  Small footsteps were coming closer, and she dropped her head, not wishing her abductor to know that she could see.

  The woman walked back up to her and sat on the bed.“That wasn't nice. I don't want you doing that again, ok?”

  Lisa looked up at her, uncovered eye staring the woman in the face as the front door squealed open and slammed shut.

  “You!” she shrieked.

  The woman grabbed her gag and pushed it back into her mouth, tying it behind her head, pulling the blindfold back down to obscure her vision yet again.

  “What's going on?” said the male kidnapper, as he made his way up the stairs.

  “Nothing...” said the woman, trying to tidy up the mess on the bed as he entered. “Bitch just... didn't like my cooking...” she said, hurrying out the room with the tray.

  The man watched his partner leave, then eyed the blindfolded woman suspiciously.

  “You should be nicer to her. If it were up to me, you'd be getting no food, y'hear?”

  His big, heavy footsteps made their way to the chair, its springs sighing as he sat down in it.

  Lisa knew he was watching her, but she didn't care. She knew who her abductors were. And once she was free, she'd make sure they would pay.

  11

  That night I didn't sleep. Couldn't sleep. It kept running round my head; anger at my fear; anger at my anger; the hopelessness of the whole mess; how it was my fault, turning from a simple transaction into a whole mess.

  If the situation was reversed, Lisa would have never been so reckless. She would have been smarter. She was always smarter. She would have never given chase or risked my safety like I risked hers. She would have certainly never risked the safety of our child.

  The sun was coming up. I couldn't even remember where the previous day went. The water had long-since seeped into the cracks between the floorboards, glass shards still where they fell, spatters of blood dried brown on the wall and floor. It was like the whole earth rotated whilst I sat there, motionless, unchanged. A whole day and night passing into another day. One dawn closer to needing another fifty thousand pounds.

  I knew I had the list, the friends who might have money to lend, but I couldn't face asking, begging, for any more favours from people I loved. Alli, Joe and Marie were the ones I knew I could count on, the ones I knew I could trust. The others were on the list because I knew they had money, but looking over their names again, I realised that I hadn't seen most of those people for a year, maybe more.

  My dedication to work, the dedication that Lisa encouraged, meant that I was barely sociable. Whilst I wrote the list thinking 'these people owe us', in truth, it was a long time since I had done anything for anyone other than myself. That was meant to change. It was on the list of changes for when the baby came. But it was going to have to change now. Lisa was more important th
an anything else in my life.

  I went through my coat pockets and bag until I found my phone. “Call Lisa.” I told it, waiting for the familiar pitter-patter of it translating speech into ones and zeroes.

  It beeped at me and shut off.

  “Fuck!” I exclaimed, wanting to hurl the phone at the floor, or smash it against the wall, but knowing better.

  I took deep breaths, tried to remain calm. Fishing around in my bag I found an external battery pack and plugged it into the USB slot at the bottom of the handset. A green battery flashed up informing me that it was charging, mocking me for being an idiot and not plugging it in at some point in the day.

  Twenty minutes later I turned the phone back on and waited for it to come to life, the screen pulsating with a rainbow of colours as the start-up graphic played out, five seconds that was wasted every time I turned the damn thing on.

  More deep breaths as I tried to push the irritation down, ignore how much I hated that pointless 'your phone is on' video and the accompanying beepedy-boop soundtrack. Finally it powered up and latched on to a 4G signal. I rested it on the coffee table, propped up on the external battery, and took another deep breath.

  “Call Lisa.” I instructed.

  The words ticker-tacked through its database, binary code churning away and it started ringing.

  Another two rings.

  Then another.

  I could feel a tension in my spine, a tingle at the base. I was taking the offensive, calling them, rather than waiting, and being a victim. But what if this was the wrong move...

  Another set of rings.

  Then another.

  ~

  “I thought you turned that fucking phone off!” The man shouted, his face illuminated by the screen, stark shadows cast upwards, as if he were telling a ghost story round a campfire by torchlight.