Captive (9 page)

Dad and I are drinking hot chocolate on the Champs-Elysées. This afternoon, the sky is blue and the sun is bright. A woman is marching past the café. The
baguette in her bag is waving furiously like it is conducting an invisible orchestra.

‘What would you have called me if Robin hadn’t died?’ I ask.

Dad is silent so I flake off a piece of pastry and dunk it in my hot chocolate, then ask if we can go to the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson museum this afternoon.

‘I thought we were talking about your brother.’

I dunk another piece of pastry, letting go this time and watching it disappear beneath the froth. ‘I didn’t think you wanted to.’

‘You give up too easily. How will I ever make a politician of you? Maybe Katherine, after your grandmother. Maybe Millicent, or Dorothy.’

I screw up my face and he smiles.

‘Does it upset you to have your brother’s name?’

‘No . . . Not really. Sometimes. Do you wish I had been a boy?’

‘Robyn Elizabeth Knollys-Green, I have been in politics for more years than I care to admit. In that time, I have averted wars, rebuilt an ailing economy and met more foreign
dignitaries than I can count. And yet you and your sister, and your brother, are my proudest achievements. There is nothing about you that I would change.’

The sun is bright through the café window. It lights Dad up from behind and makes the grey in his hair shine almost gold. ‘Never wish things to be different,’ he says.
‘It is an impossible task, aside from anything else. And thinking about impossible tasks is rather exhausting. Things are as they are. It is up to us how we handle them. And never apologise
for who you are. No’ – a smile twitches on his lips – ‘never apologise full stop or, at least, not loud enough for anyone to hear you.’

‘Do you never apologise for anything?’

‘No. My thought is and must always be: “I am able to save this country, and no one else can.”’

‘Who said that?’

‘William Pitt. The Elder.’

‘You are always quoting somebody.’

‘Words are a powerful weapon. A single word can change a destiny. You wouldn’t waste a bullet – or a nuclear warhead. Don’t waste a word.’

I swish my spoon through the last froth of my chocolate. ‘Are you able to save this country?’

‘I think so.’

‘And what does everyone else think?’

‘Who cares? I am the prime minister. It’s true that not everyone likes the methods I use to run the country, but it’s important to follow your own path. We can’t
please all the people, all of the time.’

‘What methods don’t they like? What do you do?’

‘Whatever is necessary—’ He is cut off by Gordon coming into the café.

‘Prime Minister,’ he says. ‘I think we should move on. There appears to be a man with a camera . . .’

Gordon is standing in the window, blocking out the sun. For a second, Dad is in shadow, his features so obscured by darkness that I almost don’t recognise him. Then he stands up and is
illuminated in sunlight again. ‘Come on, Bobs,’ he says. ‘
Carpe diem.
Let’s go and see that photography exhibition.’

It is just after my afternoon trip to the bathroom on the fourth day, when Talon brings me the book,
An Encyclopaedia of Woodland Birds
. It is a pretty unusual choice of
reading material. ‘It was my dad’s. I thought that maybe you’d like to try to identify the birds outside from their calls,’ he says, looking almost embarrassed. ‘The
sounds are written out, as you say them, and there are pictures.’ He flips through a couple of the pages and we both look down at the brightly coloured (and actually beautiful) photos of
various birds. Seeing them makes me yearn for my camera.

‘The video you made yesterday was good,’ he goes on. ‘I’m sure they’ll release Marble very soon and then you can go home.’

I pick at a loose thread in the knee of my tracksuit bottoms. ‘Have you heard from him? My dad.’

‘Negotiations are ongoing.’ He sounds like he’s reading a pre-written statement.

‘So you are talking to him? He’s going to release Kyle

Jefferies in exchange for me?’

‘As I said, negotiations are ongoing.’

So he hasn’t agreed, or rather the government hasn’t agreed. They must have promised something, though, because I am still alive. My worry must still show on my face, though, because
Talon says, ‘You’re the PM’s daughter. If you speak out against him, things will change. They’d have to. He couldn’t silence you. Not his own daughter. He’d
obviously do anything for you.’

I fall back on the bed. I’ve always known that being rescued is my greatest hope of survival, so what the hell are the police waiting for? Couldn’t they just bang on the front door
of every house in the country until they find the one I’m in? I don’t care if that isn’t realistic and is some sort of human rights violation. What about
my
human
rights?

‘Feather wants you to eat upstairs this evening. She’s pleased with the recording but thinks you’re still not eating properly.’ Talon sighs. ‘This will be over,
just as soon as we sort things out with your dad.’

I roll over and look at the tiny window.

‘There’s a blue sky today,’ he says, as though reading my mind. ‘Wispy clouds. There was a jay on one of the bushes out there earlier. There’s a picture in the book
if you’re interested.’

‘This book really belonged to your dad?’

He looks away and I know we are both thinking the same thing: why is he giving his dad’s book to his hostage?

‘Yeah, and then it was my brother’s. Jez was sick a lot when he was a kid. He couldn’t go out much, but there was a big tree just outside his window that was always full of
birds. Dad gave him that book so he could listen to them and know what they were.’

And now Talon is giving that book to me.

Is he beginning to sympathise with me? There was a story in the newspaper a few months back about a girl who was attacked in the street. Instead of panicking, she started telling the guy about
her life: her friends, her favourite food, a book she loved. He let her go without hurting her. Later, the police said it was because she made him see her as a person – someone like him, and
not a victim. If Talon sees me like that, will he be less likely to hurt me if something goes wrong with the negotiations?

‘There’s a big tree in the Downing Street garden,’ I say quickly. ‘I climbed it once. Mum nearly had a heart attack. It was great, though. I could see over the wall and
all the way across Horse Guards Parade.’

‘You should think about that tree now. It could be like a piece of home here with you,’ Talon says.

I pick at the loose thread on my trousers again, pretending I’m not imagining myself outside, under that tree in Downing Street, both arms outstretched under an azure sky. Only the tree in
my mind is larger than the one at home and its branches are loaded with birds.

That evening, Talon leads me up from the basement. I’m not blindfolded this time, but of course Talon is still masked. I wonder fleetingly how he and the others are going
to eat with their faces covered. The kitchen at the top of the stairs smells of garlic and onion. A pan of tomato sauce is bubbling over on the hob. ‘Feather!’ Talon calls. ‘The
food’s burning.’ I jump, but whether from the suddenness of his cry or because his fingers brush my arm as he gently steers me through the doorway and into the corridor beyond, I
can’t tell. The door still hangs half off its hinges from when Scar broke it down to come after me.

Feather comes out of a room to the left of the kitchen. She pushes past us. ‘Go in. Sit down. I’ll serve up.’

We turn a bend in the hall and there is the front door. Light from the outside world is spilling through its coloured glass panes and making splashes on the tiled floor. If only I had turned
left instead of right on that first day. I can’t run now; Talon is holding my arm too firmly.

We go into a living room. Scar is slouched on the brown couch, his legs stretched out under the glass table, a pillow stuffed under his head. His mask is half pushed up over his nose. He quickly
pulls it down over his chin as we enter, but not before I’ve caught a glimpse of full lips and a rounded chin.

The TV is on and Feather turns the volume up as she comes in, setting one of the three bowls she is holding on the table and balancing the other two in the crux of her arm. ‘Yours is in
the kitchen, Scar.’

She settles on the floor and, after rolling her mask up to her nose, begins to shovel the pasta and sauce into her mouth. Talon hands me a bowl and a plastic fork. He brushes the sofa down with
his hand and gestures for me to sit. After I’ve done so, he lowers himself down beside me, giving Feather, who grins up at him, a playful kick in the back.

Scar comes back with his bowl as the news is starting. I am struggling to eat again. The sauce is more water than tomato and the pasta sticks to my mouth like wet cement. After only a few
mouthfuls, I put the fork down and let the bowl rest in my lap. Talon is eating methodically, the bottom of the mask pulled up with one hand, so he can shove the fork into his mouth with the other.
I let my hair fall around my face, so I can watch him surreptitiously. He wears a grey short-sleeved T-shirt, so his arms are visible. At the top of one, just peeking out from under the fabric of
his shirt, is the white bandage covering the stab wound I gave him. He looks vulnerable compared to the others.

Scar is hunched in a corner, his back to us. He slurps and belches his way through his meal, the mask pushed way back on his head. He finishes eating just as a news broadcaster announces the
day’s headlines. I am surprised that I am being allowed to watch this. Denying prisoners any knowledge of the outside world is a well-known way of making them cooperate. But then I have
already cooperated – maybe they are preparing to send me home? Maybe the government has agreed with Dad that releasing Kyle Jefferies is a small price to pay for my freedom.

‘We go live now to a press conference with Prime Minister Stephen Knollys-Green,’ the anchor-woman says.

And there he is. My dad, in his yellow tie – the one I picked out for him on that last morning – standing behind a podium on the steps of Downing Street with my mum a step behind
him. The camera zooms in on Dad as he loops his arm around Mum and pulls her into the frame. She is thin, her eyes watery behind the TV make-up. I can sense her resistance to being that close to
him on camera from the puckering of her lips and the way she tilts her head back. Dad begins to talk, but his voice is quiet, and his hand shakes as he reaches for the glass of water on the podium.
That makes me nervous. I need him to be in charge. To be terrifying. I need him to tell these people that they can’t hurt his daughter and he will do whatever it takes to get me back. Instead
he talks slowly, tripping over his words, and his eyes flutter across the screen as if unable to focus properly. ‘Firstly, I – we – would like to . . . thank everyone for their
unfailing support in the form of words of . . . condolence, letters, emails and even . . . gifts. These acts of kindness have sustained us through these . . . our . . . darkest of days.’

I convince myself he is just taking time to warm up. I’ve seen Dad persuade the United Nations to send out peacekeeping troops. He can do this.

‘These last days have been . . . they have been . . . well, hell. As many of you know, on the eleventh of April . . . my . . . daughter Robyn was taken . . . she was taken hostage while
travelling with her mother and sister—’

He gets no further because my mum collapses, falling right into the podium and knocking it forward. My hand goes automatically to my head as hers hits the concrete. She doesn’t get up
again. The room spins. I stare at a piece of peeling wallpaper, just to the right of the screen. Green with mould and curved upwards, it looks like a leaf. I stare at it until the room settles.
Be okay. Please let Mum be okay.
I jump as Talon touches my arm. When I look at him, I expect to see gloating in his eyes, but there is only gentleness there, as if he cares whether my mum
might be hurt. I’ve never thought before how much you can tell about a person from just their eyes. When I look back at the TV screen, my heartbeat is steadier again. Like somehow the fact
that I’m not the only one in this room who cares about my mum has calmed me. One of Dad’s assistants is helping Mum to her feet. She looks dazed but otherwise all right.

‘Stupid bitch,’ Scar murmurs.

Talon tells him to shut up. Scar opens his mouth to say something, but is silenced by Feather holding up her hand. ‘He’s going to start talking again.’

She’s right. Dad is back at the podium. Talon’s hand slips from my arm but my skin is still warm from his touch. After a last look at Mum, who is being ushered inside Number 10, Dad
begins to talk. It’s like he’s a different man. Maybe seeing Mum faint has reminded him of what is at stake. There is a new determination set into the lines in his face, and he grips
the side of the podium with both hands, like he might throw it at anyone who gets in his way. When he speaks, it is the voice he used for the UN. This is the dad I need him to be right now. He is,
after all, fighting for my life.

‘As many of you know, on the eleventh of April, my sixteen-year-old daughter, my Robyn, was kidnapped while travelling with her mother and sister to my wife’s family home in the
country by the terrorist organisation, the AFC. This same group is responsible for shooting me in Paris in January. These people are ruthless. They would have us believe that they are promoting the
rights of animals, but what about the rights of the human? What about the rights of my daughter, snatched in the most brutal and terrifying way? This will not be tolerated. We will find the people
responsible and we will punish them in the severest way.’ He looks straight into the camera, straight at me. ‘Robyn, we will find you. We will bring you home.’