Deadline by Simon Kernick Read Free Book Online

at the trees and listen to the sounds of early autumn. This was her refuge, her place of peace, and today it gave her hope. There was still that numb fear that it could all go wrong, and that these people, whoever they were, were simply stringing her along, but Andrea was a pragmatist, and the more she thought about it the more she shared Jimmy's view that their primary motive was money. If she did what she was told, they would release Emma. And then maybe, just maybe, things could start to get back to normal. Just the two of them together again.
Jimmy returned at seven o'clock, telling her not to worry because he'd been careful leaving and coming back. She didn't bother asking him where he'd been, assuming he'd been visiting associates. Frankly, she didn't care. She just wanted tonight sorted, and then she wanted rid of him for ever. It remained to be seen whether she'd made a mistake by involving him at all, but it was too late to worry about that now. Tonight she had to focus on the task ahead.
And so, for the next two hours, the waiting continued. They didn't speak much. There was little to say, and it was difficult to plan anything given that neither of them knew what procedures the kidnappers intended to set for them. Andrea kept looking at her watch. Sometimes she counted the seconds ticking on the clock in the hallway, and all the time the tension cranked up inside her little by little.
The clock struck nine.
She looked across at Jimmy. Her mouth was dry. He looked back, and for the first time she saw that he too was worried. He was frowning, his eyebrows almost touching, the lines on his forehead heavily pronounced and suddenly making him look his age. The room was thick with silence.
A minute passed. Andrea counted the seconds on the clock. Neither of them spoke, but Jimmy looked at his watch several times and sighed. It was a cheap thing with a black plastic strap, not like the Cartier he'd worn when she'd first known him. Times had obviously been hard for Jimmy. Maybe even hard enough for him to consider getting involved in a kidnap . . . No, she didn't want to go down that route. She had to trust somebody, and right now there was no one else.
The phone rang. The receiver was next to her on the coffee table. She picked up immediately.
'Yes?'
'Have you got a pen and paper?' asked the disguised voice – the one that had first called her, she thought.
'Yes.'
'Good. Do exactly what I say and you'll have your daughter back before the end of the night.'
'That's all I want,' she told him.
'Fuck us about, though, and she dies. Painfully. Do you understand?'
She tensed, thinking of Jimmy. Was it a big mistake bringing him in? She said that she understood.
'Here are your instructions. Get in your car – the Mercedes – and drive up to the junction of the M1 and the M25, then proceed eastbound on the M25 to junction twenty-five. Turn left on to the A10, then turn left again at the next roundabout on to the B198 signposted to Rosedale.' He waited while she wrote all this down. His breathing was audible on Andrea's end of the phone. 'There's a turning on the left about two hundred metres down. Follow the road for approximately three quarters of a mile until you see a sign on the right for Gabriel's Saw Mill. Drive down there two hundred metres.' He paused again. 'At that point the track forks. Take the right-hand fork and follow it approximately fifty metres. A burnt-out single-storey building with no front door will appear on your right. You can't miss it. Stop the car but leave the engine running. Take the bag containing the money inside, and drop it against the front wall so that it can't be seen from outside. There's a turning circle another twenty metres down the track. Drive down to that, turn round and leave.'
'What about Emma?'
'When you get back on to the road, turn right and keep going about half a mile and you'll come to a phone box on the left. Go inside and wait for our call. As soon as we've confirmed that all