He glanced at his watch: 7.25 p.m. — a little later than he’d told Freya, but he was confident she would be charming the client. Deciding to leave his kit in the car for now, he strode up to the front door in a sunny mood. The champion coming home to a hero’s welcome!
Not that Jinx gave him any kind of a welcome at all. The cat stood, just inside the front door, its back arched. As he leaned down to stroke it, it sprinted away as if fired from a torpedo tube. The lounge door, to his left, was open and he presumed Freya was in there with Mr Elkington.
He checked his appearance in the coat-stand mirror, straightening his Dyke Golf Club tie and brushing back a few stray strands of hair, then at the last minute, remembering his gum, hurried over to the kitchen and dropped it in the pedal bin. The television was on in there as normal, a sitcom playing. Freya kept it on all the time she was home, whether in the kitchen or not.
He went back into the hallway. Checked his tie again in the mirror and his posture, then with a warm smile for his potential new client, he strode into the lounge.
And felt as though he’d stepped onto a frozen lake and the ice was cracking beneath him.
85
Tuesday, 5 November
Before his brain could process the surreal sight that greeted him, both of Harry Kipling’s arms were seized and yanked sharply behind him. He stared, scared and bewildered, at three hooded strangers in the living room. Each wore a black balaclava, a black oversuit of the style worn by CSIs at crime scenes, and blue latex gloves.
Two of them, man-mountains, stood either side of him. He felt his hands being bound behind him by something sharp that cut into his wrists, and instantly he was forced down onto a chair.
Freya was on one sofa, grey gaffer tape over her mouth and securing her arms also behind her. He could see the terror in her eyes as she desperately tried to signal something to him, but he couldn’t figure out what. Tom was on the opposite sofa, his arms similarly taped behind him. His right sweatshirt sleeve was rolled up to his shoulder, revealing his diabetes monitoring disc. On the coffee table, beside a large tray of caramel, chocolate and sugar-coated jam doughnuts, lay a dark blue pen. Tom’s insulin pen. Beside it was Freya’s phone in its distinctive red cover.
Through the vortex of fear and confusion in his mind, Harry blurted, ‘Who the hell are you? What do you want?’
A tall, lean man, eyes, nostrils and mouth visible through the slits in the balaclava, stood beside Tom. He spoke with a Southern American accent in a voice devoid of humour. ‘Welcome to our little party, Mr Kipling. I’m real sorry if you’re hungry after your golf game, but these are all for your boy, I’m afraid. He’s a growing lad. We might need him to eat one or two to keep his sugar levels up.’
‘Those things are toxic for Tom!’ Harry said in fury. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
‘Oh, I know exactly what I am doing, Mr Kipling,’ he said. ‘You see, like your boy, I’m a diabetic too,’ he lied, and patted his own left arm. ‘I have the same Libre patch as him. Great technology, eh? Before the discovery of insulin in 1921, the life expectancy for a Type-1 diabetic was three to five years.’ He picked the pen up off the table. ‘Of course, I’m sure you and Mrs Kipling know that, right?’ He made a show of removing the cap of the pen, exposing the needle, then twisted the dial, with a series of clicks. Holding the pen up, he pressed the plunger and sent a small spray of the clear, sour-smelling liquid into the air. ‘Too much insulin can be just as fatal for a diabetic as too little.’ He smiled. ‘Guess you know that too, don’t you?’
‘We don’t need a fucking chemistry lesson,’ Harry said with impotent rage as he struggled to try to free his arms. He wanted desperately to protect his family and he could do nothing at this moment.
The American nodded his head slowly. ‘Oh, I think you do, Mr Kipling. You see, I’ve already given your lad a very large dose of insulin, way more than he needs. To counterbalance it, he will need to eat and keep eating something with very high sugar content. Doughnuts are perfect for that. But here’s the deal, Mr Kipling, before I give Tom one of these lifesavers, I need something from you.’
Harry saw the look of despair Tom gave him. An instant later, the American laid down the pen and picked up the phone. He entered a code, Freya’s, Harry presumed, tapped a yellow app that Harry instantly recognized, and held the top of the phone close to the circular Libre patch on Tom’s arm. The phone emitted a brief warble sound. Then the American walked over to Freya and held it up in front of her eyes. ‘See the reading?’
He then showed it to Harry.
It read 5, in black letters on a green band. Above the number were the words, GLUCOSE NORMAL. Beside them was a black arrow, pointing downwards. That was ominous, Harry knew. When Tom had first been diagnosed as a Type-1 diabetic, he had made it his business to learn everything he could about the disease. And one key thing he knew was that the safe range of blood-sugar level was, on the UK calibration system, between 4 and 9. A reading of 5 was fine, but at the low end. And the arrow pointing down indicated Tom’s sugar level was dropping.
‘I see the reading. What’s your point, whoever the hell you are?’
‘My point, Mr Kipling, is that twenty minutes before you arrived home, your son’s reading was ten. It’s come down pretty damn fast, wouldn’t you say? Do the math.’
Harry didn’t need to. How much insulin had this bastard given Tom? He felt a chill spiral deep through him. He stared at the American belligerently. ‘Why are you doing this? You need something? What the hell do you need? What do you want?’ He tried to stand up and was immediately pushed back down.
Kilgore jabbed the insulin pen at the Fragonard copy on the wall. ‘I think you know exactly what I want, Mr Kipling.’
‘That?’ Harry said. ‘You want that? Be my guest, fucking take it! It’s yours! Just leave me and my family alone, please.’ He was close to crying in desperation, fearful for his son. He looked at Freya, feeling utterly useless. His heart felt it was trying to twist out of his chest.
‘Here’s the problem, Mr Kipling,’ Kilgore said, quietly and calmly. ‘You need to understand it’s not that painting there that we want, but thank you kindly for the offer and we may well take that too, to avoid confusion. What we’ve come for is the original. My boss made you a very generous offer for it some while back and you snubbed him. I’m afraid my boss doesn’t like being snubbed.’
‘Fifty thousand pounds, right?’ Harry said, now realizing what this was about. He glanced desperately again at Freya and then Tom. Freya was trying to say something but all she could do with her masked mouth was make a murmuring sound. ‘Fine, I’ll take it,’ Harry said. ‘Do we have a deal?’
‘My boss doesn’t negotiate, and he doesn’t like rejection. I’m afraid we’ve gone way beyond that, Mr Kipling.’
Kilgore walked back over to Tom and again checked his blood-sugar level on Freya’s phone. He showed it to Harry.
It was now reading 4, the background had changed to yellow, the wording read, GLUCOSE LEVEL GOING LOW. The arrow was still pointing downwards.
Harry realized what he was saying. He’d been here less than five minutes. If the American was telling the truth, in just twenty-five minutes Tom’s level had dropped from 10 to 5. At that rate—
Before Harry could reply, the American showed the reading to Freya, who gurgled a sound of desperation.