He was already grabbing the helmet as she continued to speak and then he put it over her head then took her phone from her.
‘Get on the bike,’ he ordered. ‘I will get the location when we have better internet. We will track where she is. We will find who she is with and I will beat the shit out of anyone I think needs it.’
Faye was looking stunned, eyes still leaking tears, unmoving. He got on the bike, put her phone in the slot on the dash then turned back to her. ‘Faye, come on. Get on. Hold on to me.’
She didn’t seem to need to be told twice. He started the engine and she put her arms around him and held tight. Stathis would have to wait.
* * *
Faye felt like her brain was made of cotton wool that had been deep-fried. It felt hot but it was also soft mush and not retaining the simplest of things. She couldn’t think or react normally; rationality wasn’t coming, and all she could do was cry. She needed to get herself together. Although Saffron had anxiety, she was much older now, more clued up than the time she went missing at the music festival and was brought back to the house by a policewoman. But Faye was still experiencing all those same sickly feelings, that foreboding, that dread…
‘OK, she’s in something that’s moving so hopefully a car!’ Kostas called back to her. ‘We are going to catch it up.’
‘Can we? How far is it?’ Faye yelled through her helmet.
‘Let me worry about the how far. You just hold on to me.’
She tightened her grip on Kostas’s body and he swerved out around a car and took off at an even faster pace.
They thundered along the dual carriageway, passing the sea on the right and the fur coat shops on the left until Kostas pulled alongside a dark blue car with blacked-out windows. He started beeping the horn and shouting in Greek while Faye tried desperately to see inside the vehicle. Was Saffron in there? She didn’t know this car. Now her heart was pounding even more…
‘Stási! Tora!’
Stop. Now.
Finally, the car indicated to pull off the main road and onto one of the service roads. Kostas stopped the bike, dropped the kickstand and leapt off before the male driver had even made it out of the vehicle. Faye scrambled off the bike, wobbling as her feet met the tarmac and then, as yelling in Greek ensued, she watched Saffron emerge from the passenger side of the car looking slightly bewildered. Faye’s heart swelled first with love then quickly flooded with relief.
‘Saffron!’ Faye exclaimed.
‘Mum! What’s going on?’ Saffron asked. ‘Why are you wearing a motorbike helmet?’
‘Tha fas xýlo!’
That had come from Kostas and Faye knew it meant he was ready to make things physical with whoever was driving Saffron to wherever they were heading. Right now, Kostas was squaring up to the man who was a lot shorter than him and quite a bit rounder, but equally furious it seemed.
‘Saffron, who is that man? Do you know him?’ Faye asked her.
‘Not really,’ Saffron said.
Faye’s heart thumped until…
‘But Dad does. He’s called Giorgos. He does taxi runs for friends, you know, cheap. I told Dad you were coming to get me but he’d already phoned him and I didn’t have any phone signal or 4G to call you so?—’
‘Kosta!’ Faye called. ‘It’s OK. He’s not, you know, a kidnapper.’
‘What?’ Saffron said. ‘You thought I was being kidnapped! Mum! I’m not even a kid any more.’
Faye was now torn between listening to Saffron’s annoyance at being labelled a minor and the two men who were still arguing. ‘Kosta! Please! It’s OK.’
‘It is not OK, Faye,’ Kostas replied, his hands now full of the man’s polo shirt. ‘I do not like his attitude.’
The man gasped for air and Faye wondered if he was about to have some sort of asthma attack. Until he spoke…
‘I know you! My God, you are Kostas Petsas!’
‘And I still do not know who you are,’ Kostas barked.
‘I am Giorgos. I have been watching the mighty team of ours since I was three years old. It is an honour to have you touch my shirt.’
