‘No. But I know she’s three months and one week old today and that she should be with her mother. She needs to be with her mother.’
‘That’s not going to happen,’ he says, looking away.
‘You think just because you’re her father, that gives you the right to do whatever you like?’
‘I’m doing what needs to be done.’
‘Please, Dominic.’ I soften my voice, making an effort to lower it. ‘You don’t have to go down this road. Mia is innocent in all of this, You know she is.’
‘Things have gone too far already.’ He tucks the gun into the waistband of his jeans. ‘Too much water under the bridge.’
‘I know you’re angry but you—’
‘Enough talking,’ he says, holding a hand up. ‘I have to go and fetch something. You need to put her down now.’
I put some sofa cushions onto the floor and lay Mia gently down on them as she sucks contentedly on one of her muslin cloths. Dominic gestures to me to sit back down in the chair, binding my hands with the duct tape again, then holds something up in front of me. My mobile.
‘What’s your unlock pattern?’
I tell him and he traces the pattern with a thick index finger. The phone comes to life, the screen filling with a picture of my tabby cat, Dizzy.
‘You can’t get out of this room, but in case you get any ideas about trying to, just remember that I know everything about you now, OK?’ He points at the phone. ‘I will come looking for you and I will find you. A day or a month from now, you’ll wake up one night and I’ll be standing there, at the end of your bed. Do you understand?’ He slips the phone into the pocket of his jeans.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘But I can’t look after Mia properly with my hands taped.’
‘I won’t be gone long.’
He puts the hood over my head again and the world goes dark, the fusty smells of the fabric filling my nose. Dirt, sweat, blood. I sense him leaning in close, his voice in my ear, hard and low.
‘Don’t move from that chair,’ he says. ‘Scream if you want, but this whole complex is abandoned and due for demolition next year, no one’s near enough to hear you. Miles of corridors and old studios, lots of sound-proofing, car parks on every side. I’m locking this door from the outside and there’s no other key.’
I hear his heavy footsteps crossing the room, the sound of the door closing and locking, his steps retreating into the distance and then nothing. Silence apart from the contented gurgles of Mia as she lies on sofa cushions, her little sounds muffled by my hood. I count off another sixty seconds in my head, my whole body shaking with adrenaline and fear, closing my eyes and straining every sense to hear another step, an echo, any noise to suggest he is still close by. Every instinct screaming the same thing: Go. Get out.
My hands are taped tightly behind me, low against the back of the chair so it is agonizingly painful to raise myself up to a standing position. Painful, but not impossible. My thighs burning, my shoulders feeling like they might pop out of their sockets, I raise myself up inch by inch until I can roll my body forward and slip my hands over the top of the chair to stand up properly. Breathing hard with exertion inside the hood, the dizziness comes on quickly. Don’t pass out. I bend at the waist, shaking my head from side to side until the hood comes off and falls to the floor. I pull in a deep lungful of breath, then another, while my eyes find Mia. The baby is cooing to herself contentedly on the sofa, the corner of a muslin cloth clamped in her mouth. I run to her, look her over. She seems OK.
A memory pulses through me. An image as familiar as my own face: the scorching heat of a silent day, drifting smoke, the acrid stink of burning diesel, vultures circling on thermals high above. Broken bodies lying in the desert sand.
Get her out of here.
There is a connecting door through to a small kitchen at the far end of the room. I rush over to it, my shoeless feet almost silent on the rough industrial carpet, and begin awkwardly pulling open drawers with my hands still taped behind me. Old plastic cutlery, brown-stained teaspoons, plastic straws. Nothing with a blade. But there is a row of old glass jars lined up behind the sink, lidless and clouded with age. In the other corner is a broomstick, cobwebbed to the wall. I back up to it and reach for it blindly, grasping it awkwardly in both hands. Holding it up behind me I swing it against the glass jars and in one quick motion sweep them all off the worktop, a succession of smashes – pop pop pop – as they shatter on the tiled floor around my feet. The sound is horribly loud in the silence and I freeze for a second, leaning towards the hallway, straining to hear any noise in response. Nothing. I kneel, feeling behind me for the biggest, sharpest piece of broken glass, holding it up and sawing against the duct tape that binds my wrists together.
My arms and wrists burn with the effort. Come on, come on. This is taking too long. I shift position, a shard of broken glass stabbing into the sole of my stockinged foot. Gritting my teeth against the pain, I keep sawing at the tape until I feel the first strand start to give, then the next and the next, until finally I can pull my wrists apart, the black tape still clinging to my skin. I kick more shards of glass into the corner as I go back into the conference room. I hop over to the nearest chair, stabbing pains arcing up my leg, and pull out a piece of broken glass embedded in the ball of my left foot, wiping a smear of blood against my sleeve.
One entire wall of the conference room is taken up with a series of floor to ceiling windows, with a sliding glass door in the centre that leads out onto a balcony overlooking the empty car park. The latch on the metal-framed glass door is broken, the lever snapped off. I haul on the door and feel a fresh surge of urgency as it slides noisily open on its rusted track. Just a few inches. I lean into it and haul again with a grunt of effort, pulling the door open a full foot. It’s enough. Outside the air is cleaner, sharp and cold, the light fading fast. The balcony is functional, rust and dirt and drifts of rotting leaves, a waist-high metal barrier around the edge. We’re on the second floor, twenty feet above the car park and there’s no fire escape – but there is a drainpipe, with supporting brackets holding it to the wall every few feet. I test the pipe with both hands, trying to rattle it from side to side. It doesn’t move.
I can put Mia in the sling.
This is the way out.
A sound from below separates itself from the distant hum of traffic. A car. A big engine. I drop to my hands and knees. The BMW is back.
Bent double as I hobble back inside, my eyes search the room. Shit. Where is the sling? I had put it on the table, I thought, when I took Mia out of it and laid her on the cushions. I circle the room, pulling aside chairs, checking under the table, pushing aside a sleeping bag and a pile of clothes on one of the sofas. I have to find it. I’m pretty sure I can climb down the drainpipe – I’ve handled tougher descents before – but not one-handed. Not with a baby in my arm.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Footsteps on the stairs.
I freeze. The sliding door is there, a few feet away. The hood discarded on the floor, back inside the room.
Choose.
Footsteps in the corridor outside.
I could go, climb down, get away, raise the alarm. Find a house, a car, a phone, have the police here in minutes. That would be the smart move. I can just go.