He smashes his fist onto the table and the bowl of mash jumps. My little girl begins to cry and all I want to do is hold her tightly and take her out of all this. ‘Shut up with the whinging.’ He turns the music off.
‘Cally, it’s okay. I’m okay. Just be a good girl and eat your potatoes.’
‘I don’t want them. I want Daddy.’ She throws her spoon onto the table and the boat is soon filled with her sobs.
‘Shut up. I am your daddy now.’ He stares at her hard, and she buries herself into my side. She stops crying and sucks her thumb, something she hasn’t done for years. She knows not to say another word. ‘Eat.’ He presses the fork to my lips again and I take his offering even though I know it is going to cloy in my throat. We have to play along if we are to survive.
My heart goes out to Omar. He risked everything to help me and he’s bleeding, battered and bruised and from what my captor is insinuating, dying or dead. I’m scared he won’t make it unless I can get him an ambulance, pronto. ‘Omar needs help. Please can you leave him somewhere where someone will find him and help him? You have me. You don’t need him.’
He grins. ‘You think it’s that easy. I just drop him off in a busy area and all will be okay?’
‘He’ll die. I don’t want him to die.’
He shakes his head. ‘You’ll come to realise that’s the best outcome. He’ll ruin everything. He knows who I am. The police are closing in on me and I know that we’re meant to be together. He dies and we get out of here and start a new life on this boat. One day we’ll have a home. Somewhere where no one will know us. Cally can go to a new school. You can stay at home all day while I go to work. I love you, Annabel, and I love Cally too. That is why the boy has to go.’
I don’t know how to respond. Omar is as good as dead. I think of the geeky kid who stayed and asked me all those questions after class. He’d then begin to enquire into my private sphere.What’s your favourite film, miss? Do you like pizza? I can cook pizza really well. I’ve been on holiday to Menorca. It’s my favourite place too. I love dogs. Lurchers and greyhounds are my favourite. They’re so… so fast.Of course, he’d been making everything up to please me and to engage in further conversation. If I wasn’t in this situation, I’d smile. At the time, I found him demanding of my time and annoying, but I loved teaching him.
‘He’s a kid. You don’t need to hurt a child. That’s not you.’ My daughter presses her head against my arm and I feel her trembling. She’s cold too. My wrists are tied at the front of me but my fingers are free. I use them to stroke her head. Her sobs are now little hiccups. The wetness from her eyes and nose is seeping through my sleeve. I want nothing more than to hug her.
‘Child? You make me laugh, you only have to look at him to know he wants you. He’s an obsessed little prick who has basically been stalking you.’
‘Obsessed!’ I don’t know how he has the nerve to talk about Omar like that when he has me tied up on a boat and is about to take me away from the life I’ve built. My job, my friends, my dad, Cally’s father. ‘He’s obsessed?’
He knows exactly what I mean by that and he shakes his head. ‘I don’t lurk around your house. I’ve been a part of your life as long as you’ve been with Grant. I knew as soon as you and he moved in together that you’d chosen the wrong man to settle down with. He’s a liar and a cheat. He walks around, constantly peacocking when another woman passes him. You would never be enough for him but for me, you’re more than enough. I will literally worship the ground you walk on. Only, you couldn’t see that. I was always there and I love Cally too.’ He stares at Cally with his head tilted but she buries her head into me, not looking. ‘She’ll grow to love me as time passes. It’ll be Dad before we know it. Children of this age soon forget things.’
Cally slips under the table and I see her dodge under him and run for the door. I already know that he locked it but that doesn’t stop her from trying the handle. ‘Cally, come back to Mummy.’
He doesn’t even get off the stool opposite me. He knows he can overpower Cally anytime he wants to. ‘Kid, get back on the chair, now.’
She sits on the step by the door, her bottom lip wobbling. I can see the whites of his knuckles. He’s getting angry.
‘Cally, sweetie, please come back to Mummy.’ I know she can see the fear in me and coming back goes against every instinct she has right now.
‘I want to go home.’
‘You are home.’ He grabs a knife from the drawer and stabs it into the table. My daughter’s eyes are wide and she gets up, her legs visibly trembling and she runs past him and back to me. ‘Good girl. I know this is confusing for you but things are going to change in your life. Mummy and I love each other, which is why we’re all going away to start a new life. I have something for you and I know it will make you a very happy little girl. Do you want to see your present?’
She nods slowly.
‘That’s better.’ He smiles. ‘It’s in the car. I kept it in the footwell of the front seat because I didn’t want to ruin the surprise. I’ll go and get it, then we’ll be on our way. Can I trust you to be good and look after Mummy while I go to the car?’
With her knuckle in her mouth, she nods. I’m so proud of her for being so calm at what must be the most terrifying time of her life.
‘I’m going to unlock the door then I will go to my car. If you run away, I will take Mummy and you’ll never see her again. Do you understand?’ He grabs the knife from the kitchen table and tucks it in his belt. ‘I’ll take this with me, just in case I see a scary fox. If that fox runs, I will catch it and I will kill it.’
I know exactly what he’s saying. There’s no way I can risk Cally getting hurt. He’s taken Cally because she’s part of me and he knows that I’d never leave her but it’s me he wants. He will hurt her, I’m sure he will.
He unlocks the door and glances back giving me a sinister smile, letting me know that he won’t be taking his eyes off me. ‘It’s okay, baby.’ Cally is crying on my arm again.
‘Omar,’ I call.
Omar doesn’t answer and not a sound comes from the bedroom. All my captor has to do is drop him into the canal and his life will be over. If there is any life left in him, the cold water would soon take him. Cally begins to fiddle with the binds on my hands, trying to loosen them. ‘Keep doing that, Cally, but don’t let him see.’
She sniffs and wipes her nose on her sleeve then continues. ‘He’s the ghost, Mummy.’
‘The ghost?’
‘I saw someone in our garden when you went out with Jennifer. He moved his arms the same when he climbed out of the boat, just like the ghost. I thought it was a ghost because I was watching ghosty things.’ She paused. ‘He was locking Daddy’s garage.’
