Deadline by Simon Kernick Read Free Book Online Page B

he said. 'It's a
spare one of mine.'
    'I told you, they don't want me to take one.'
    'No, babe, they don't want you to bring your mobile phone. There's a difference.'
    'What do you mean?'
    'They're just covering themselves. If you have
gone to the police then one of the ways they can
track your movements would be using your
mobile. That's why they don't want you to have it.
They probably know your number so they can
phone to check whether it's switched off.' He
handed her the Nokia. 'But they don't know the
number of this one.'
    'OK,' she said uncertainly as he gave her the
handset.
    'Put it on vibrate, OK? I've got another phone.
You drop me off just before we get to the ransom
drop. Then an hour after we part company, I'll text
you. If it's safe for you, you call my number and
we can arrange to meet.'
    She nodded, coming to a decision. 'All right,
let's go.'

Six
    At 9.47 p.m. Andrea's Mercedes was moving at a
steady thirty miles an hour along a quiet country
B road with a cornfield stretching into the darkness
on one side and a bank of beech and oak trees
rising up on the other. A car passed them going
the other way and moving far too fast, but there
was no traffic behind. Andrea slowed as she
spotted the dilapidated sign for Gabriel's Saw
Mill nailed to a tree up ahead.
    'This is it,' she whispered, indicating right.
    Jimmy was hunched down in the front
passenger seat, a position he'd adopted ever since
they'd left the motorway.
    'All right, babe,' he whispered. 'I'm out as soon as
you make the turning, unless I hear any different.'
    'I don't like this, Jimmy, I really don't like this.'
The doubts were savaging her now. If he makes a mistake . . .
    'It's just an insurance policy. Better safe than
sorry.'
    She steered the Mercedes into the turning, little
more than a dirt track which was only just wide
enough for the car. Ahead, the trees loomed, blotting
out the light of the moon.
    'Wish me luck, babe.'
    'Good luck,' she answered without looking at
him as she peered through the windscreen into
the darkness.
    A second later the door opened – a foot, maybe
a foot and a half – and Jimmy slid through the
gap. Then he shut the door silently behind him
and Andrea drove on, risking a brief glance in the
rear-view mirror as he disappeared into the
woods.
    Suddenly she was on her own.
    Up ahead the trees seemed to rise up to greet
her, and the only sounds were the tyres crunching
on the track's loose gravel and her own low, tense
breathing. This was it, the moment of truth. Close
to all of Andrea's life savings were in the holdall
in the footwell of the front passenger seat. She
would have given everything, down to the clothes
on her back, to have Emma returned to her safely,
but if this failed and her tormentors didn't keep
their side of the bargain she didn't know what else
she could do, or where she could get any more
money from.
    The track forked as the kidnapper had said it
would, and she followed it to the right as
instructed. The road surface became pitted and
potholed and she was forced to slow right down
as she manoeuvred the Mercedes round the worst
of the holes. Nothing moved in the darkness up
ahead and on either side of her the wall of trees
looked impenetrable.
    And then it appeared to her right, a concrete
outbuilding with blackened walls set back a few
yards from the track, its roof all but gone, a black
hole where the front door was.
    She stopped the car and jerked on the handbrake,
slipping the gearstick into neutral. For a
few seconds she just sat there, listening to the
silence, wondering if the man on the phone was
watching her now, the man who'd abducted her
daughter. Wondering too whether he'd hear
Jimmy's approach and call the whole thing off.
    Nothing moved. Andrea could hear her heart
beating.
    Finally, she bent down and pulled up the
holdall, leaning back against the weight, and
manoeuvred it awkwardly out of the car. As she
stood up, she took one last look around before
walking slowly up to the