Trusting a Stranger (16 page)

But Ethan scowled at her. ‘I know my own daughter!' he said.

The traffic around them began finally to move.

‘There she is!' he yelled, and began running forward into the traffic jam.

He could run quickly and Hayley knew she would soon be left behind. She felt torn when the traffic began to move more quickly still and Ethan paused. It would have been wonderful if he'd been able to reach Katy's taxi now, but at least she could stay with him if they had to find some other way of getting there.

Ethan reached into his pocket and removed two one-hundred Euro notes from his wallet.

‘Come with me!' he yelled towards Hayley as he ran down a concrete slope towards a wire fence.

How would they get through that?

Ethan reached into his bag this time. He must have been a boy scout, Hayley thought. It was either that or the long-term living with danger that had taught him to be prepared. The next thing he had in his hand seemed to be a pair of wire cutters.

He knelt before the fence and began cutting a hole in the wire. Hayley looked around, certain that there would be police or railway staff or someone along soon to stop him. But they seemed to be on their own.

Ethan cut a small hole, wriggled through and then turned to help Hayley. She was much smaller than him and crawled through easily.

‘The taxi was going that way,' Ethan pointed.

‘What are we going to do?'

‘Hold my hand.'

Hayley shrugged, and reached towards him.

Ethan turned and ran again, this time towards the nearest taxi. He still had the large-denomination Euro notes in his hand as he reached for the vehicle's back door.

From within, two protesting faces turned in his direction and yelled: the passenger and the driver.

Ethan passed them one note each and repeated his earlier statement about it being an emergency.

Hayley watched as the driver turned towards the woman who had been his original passenger and made a shooing gesture with his hands. The woman looked resentful but she clutched the note in one hand as she opened the door beside her with the other.

As she climbed out, Ethan slid in and across to the seat that she had just vacated. He waved with his arm for Hayley to follow.

‘There's a taxi up ahead,' Ethan said, as the car began to move. ‘A hundred metres or so. I want you to follow it.'

‘A taxi?' the driver muttered.

It was hard to tell if he was excited or annoyed at finding himself at the centre of unexpected drama.

‘Not too far ahead,' Ethan repeated.

‘There are hundreds of taxis.'

‘Only one of them has my daughter in it,' Ethan said, grimly. ‘Look, you just drive, I'll tell you where to go.'

He settled back into his seat. Hayley rested her hand on his leg but he seemed barely aware of the comforting gesture. His own hand was gripping onto the door handle as though he might want to leap out at any moment.

‘Turn left up ahead,' he said a after a couple of moments.

‘I know this neighbourhood. There's nothing down that way,' the driver objected.

‘I said turn left.'

‘I know these streets. This is my home,' the driver said. The lights ahead of him turned orange and he slowed.

Ethan gripped the back of the driver's seat in frustration. ‘I don't want you stopping unless there's actually another car in the way!' he said. ‘And I want you to turn left.'

The driver turned to look at them. His mouth was hanging open. ‘Just because I've taken your money doesn't mean you can talk to me like that,' he began.

Hayley thought it was time they gave the man an explanation. ‘We're looking for my friend's daughter,' she began. ‘A little girl. She's been kidnapped —'

But Ethan clearly thought the time for talking was over. He opened the door beside him and climbed out.

What was he doing? Hayley reached for her own door handle, determined to join him, but Ethan had stepped towards the front of the car and swung the driver's own door open.

‘I'll be doing the driving now,' he said. ‘Move over or I'll toss you onto the street.'

‘You can't do this! This isn't my car!' the driver yelled. ‘I'll be killed if I don't take it back!'

‘Then move over,' Ethan repeated, reaching in to seize the much smaller man's lapels.

‘I'm moving! I'm moving!' said the driver. He backed away, over the hand brake and over the gear stick and into the next seat.

Ethan revved the engine as the traffic they were crossing slowed. The lights were about to change.

The taxi ahead of them had turned onto a less busy street and was able to gather speed before they reached the corner. But the better traffic conditions also meant it stayed more visible as they sped between facing blocks of dirty concrete houses.

Ethan ignored the complaints of the driver beside him as he sped along. The roads leading off to both side streets suggested a warren of streets and he feared that if the other taxi turned outside his line of sight, then it would be lost forever.

‘My car! My car!' said the driver.

He was jumping up and down in the seat but had not bothered putting on his seat belt.

‘My car!'

‘I thought you said it wasn't your car,' Hayley observed from the back seat.

‘It's more than my job is worth if the car is in an accident,' the driver told her, yelling. ‘Someone else driving and it is more than my life!'

Ethan shrugged. He was a good and practiced driver and knew he wasn't going to have an accident. And he was glad that Hayley seemed to have a knowledge of Italian that was almost as good as her own. Otherwise, she might have thought from the level of his whinging that the driver had something far more serious to say.

As it was, the driver continued moaning and one of Ethan's brief glances into the rear vision mirror revealed Hayley sitting there, stretched to one side so that she could do her best to keep up with where the taxi was as well.

Ahead of them, the taxi slowed.

‘He's stopping!' Hayley called.

The other vehicle stopped while she was speaking. Ethan pulled up a few metres away. There was a chance that, in the traffic, they had not been spotted. If they could maintain the element of surprise, perhaps this would give them an advantage over Katy's kidnapper.

Ethan leaped out of the car from one side, aware of Hayley doing the same from the other.

‘Hey! Aren't you going to pay me?' demanded the driver.

‘You've already got a hundred Euros,' Hayley reminded him.

The driver seemed to think about that. ‘You want me to wait here for you?' he asked. ‘One hundred more?'

But Ethan didn't care. After quickly checking that Hayley was with him, he was striding quickly along the street.

‘Stay close to the wall,' he said, looking at Hayley over his shoulder.

The taxi ahead was disgorging its passengers, too. A thickset man and a tall woman in a headscarf — and Katy.

What to do? If he called out from here that might give Katy the chance to turn and run but, well, she might not. And if something went wrong and the adults with her realised who he was, then they would have plenty of time to react before Ethan got there. If he wasn't careful, Katy could end up in even more danger than she was already.

‘If we see them go into one of the buildings we can call the police,' Hayley reminded him in a subdued voice.

Every fibre of his body was screaming for him to break into a run and go grab Katy now but Ethan just couldn't do it. He didn't know enough about the situation to make a judgement call like that. He didn't even know if Katy's captors were armed.

He was too involved. His judgement was impaired. He would not think it wise for any father to be in this position. But what choice did he have? Ethan closed his eyes and tried to imagine what he would suggest if that was someone else's child up there. But his imagination simply wasn't up to the task.

That wasn't someone else's child! It was Katy!

He paused for a moment. He'd never been in a situation like this in his life. The thin woman wrapped her arm around the little girl's shoulder and seemed to be directing her to follow the man.

The man was walking towards the nearest building. He pressed a buzzer on the wall as they approached.

‘Try to look casual,' Ethan said to Hayley.

The worst thing that could happen would be if Katy were to see him and react — the way she surely would — while he was too far away to race up to her and seize her. The reactions of other people always made him vulnerable. But Katy was teaching him that this was what life was about.

While they approached, the door to the building finally open. The thin woman that had hugged Katy turned to look in their direction. Beneath her scarf she wore enormous, round black sunglasses.

Could it be Pearl?

Ethan tried to look more closely, to see if there was anything in the woman's stance or movements that reminded him of his sister. But the truth was that, if this was Pearl, she was so very much more angular and narrow than the Pearl he had grown up with that he could never be certain.

The woman didn't seem to recognise him. If anything, she shielded the little girl more once she had seen Ethan and Hayley approaching.

Together, they followed the big man into the house.

Ethan sprinted up to the door, his phone in his hand, the police number already dialled. He wouldn't wait for the authorities to respond but it could do no harm for them to be on their way.

There was the sound of rapid chatter from inside, steps being climbed. Doors opened and slammed. Quietly, Ethan tried his hand on the doorknob but it was locked.

He became aware of a woman leaning out her own front door across the road and turned to wave at her. It was critical that they not arouse panic here and that things look as much as possible like they were going on as normal.

Hayley hastened across the road.

‘
Buongiorno
,' she said to the kidnapper's neighbour. ‘I was wondering, do you know who lives in that house?'

The woman shrugged.

Ethan knew this sort of area well. It was clear that if the woman was interested in what was going on across the road, it was out of a need for gossip rather than to inform the police.

‘People come, people go,' she said.

‘Anyone recently?' asked Hayley.

‘Sure, recently. Always recently,' said the woman. ‘You know, I think someone's trying to get your attention.'

Hayley followed the woman's arm, and Ethan followed Hayley's gaze. The woman was pointing upwards towards one of the higher stories of the building across the road.

A window up there had been pushed open and a woman with long hair was leaning out, waving madly with one arm. Although she had removed the scarf, the large sunglasses made it clear that she was the thin woman they had seen with Katy.

As Ethan looked up, the woman seemed to nod as she raised a finger to her lips.

‘Ethan!' called Hayley in a harsh whisper. ‘Look up!'

He held up one hand to silence her and then waved at the other woman. He was almost completely sure now that this was Pearl.

Was this good news, or bad? Pearl was Katy's aunt and someone whom he ought to be able to rely on to keep the little girl's safety at heart. On the other hand, if Pearl was here then that must mean she had betrayed Ethan already.

The woman pointed downwards, towards the door. She seemed to be suggesting that she had unlocked it. Ethan couldn't understand, he had checked it himself. But perhaps the door could be unlocked from upstairs.

He tried it now and the door slid open. Ethan raced inside, Hayley hot in pursuit. Before them, a corridor stretched towards the back of the building and a narrow staircase began its climb to the next floor. Pearl had been high in the house so Ethan raced for the stairs, taking them two at a time.

A door at the top of the stairs opened. There was suddenly light in the stairwell, and the sound of men's voices, yelling. Whoever had come through the door was too small for Ethan to see clearly over the edge of the handrail. His heart just about froze thinking that it was — it must be — Katy.

A moment passed, and then Katy herself appeared around the corner. She was speeding towards him, an ecstatic smile on her face.

Ethan reached towards her, disbelieving. He seized her in both his hands. He pulled her towards him and breathed in the pure scent of her little girl's black, soft, soft hair. He had thought — without allowing himself to think so — that he might never again hold Katy like this.

He felt Hayley brush past him and continue up the stairs.

‘Run!' cried Pearl from the doorway where she was, rather inexpertly, trying to hold back the large man whom she had earlier followed.

‘Pearl?' demanded Hayley.

Pearl looked puzzled but this was not the time for introductions. Still clutching his daughter to his chest, Ethan turned to head back for the stairs.

A scream made him freeze. It wasn't the shrill yell he remembered from games they had played as children. It wasn't Pearl.

Hayley, then. Covering Katy's head with one hand, Ethan turned to look back up the stairs. The bulky man — Ivan, he must be — had seized Hayley and was wrenching one hand up behind her back as he forced her to walk down the stairs. Pearl was behind all of them, her eyes wide with horror.

‘Give the girl back,' the man said. He had a gun in his right hand, and he ran its barrel back through his short, ash-coloured hair. The gesture betrayed his nerves.

‘I don't know what you're playing at,' he said, ‘but I can tell you this: you don't know who you're dealing with.'

Ethan registered the panic in Hayley's eyes. Gently, he placed Katy on the stairs, and moved in front of her.

‘Leave her alone,' he told the man who had Hayley. ‘She has nothing to do with this.'