Then Kilgore laid the phone down on the coffee table and opened his arms expansively. ‘There is of course a very simple solution to this problem. All you need to do is hand me the original Fragonard Summer and we’ll be done and out of here. Could I be any clearer?’
Harry glanced at Freya again, who was nodding vigorously. Yes, yes, yes, do it! her eyes were saying.
He then looked at Tom. His beautiful son who was already clearly not himself. Distant. Beads of perspiration on his forehead. He seemed to be shimmying with tiny tremors every few moments. He had to do something, fast. To hell with the painting, it had cost him just twenty quid. Its value in a sale could change their lives but that did not matter any longer and it wasn’t going to happen — nothing mattered but his family. They’d been fine before they’d ever bought the damned painting, happy enough. To hell with it. ‘You can have the damned painting,’ he said.
Ignoring him, the American picked up a caramel doughnut and held it out to Tom, but not quite close enough for him to take a bite from it. As if taunting him. Tom was looking increasingly pallid. ‘Wouldn’t you like to eat this right now, boy?’ he asked, his voice all warm and friendly.
Harry hated this man; if his hands were free he would tear his face off. Instead all he could do was watch, a helpless onlooker.
Tom, turning pale and shaking profusely now, nodded pleadingly.
‘Let’s check those sugars again, shall we?’ Kilgore asked, all patronizing now and putting the doughnut back down. He picked up the phone again, worked the app, held it to Tom’s arm, then showed the display to Freya and Harry.
3. The wording on the yellow band continued to read, GLUCOSE LEVEL GOING LOW. The arrow was still pointing down.
He squatted, then leaned across the coffee table until his masked face was just inches from Tom’s. Tom, clammy with perspiration now and starting to look disoriented, barely reacted. Then Kilgore picked up the same doughnut and held it out to him once more. ‘I think you’d better have a bite, you said earlier you like caramel, would you like a bite?’
Tom was looking at him, bewildered, as if struggling to focus. His neck muscles seemed to be barely supporting his head. After a moment he gave a lolling nod.
Kilgore pushed the doughnut closer to Tom’s mouth and he craned forward, chomping off a big piece which he chewed fiercely and desperately. As he did so, Kilgore put the rest of it back in the tray, once more out of the teenager’s reach, and turned to Harry. ‘That bite will buy him a few extra minutes, Mr Kipling. But you saw how fast his sugar level’s dropping.’
‘How much insulin have you bloody given him?’
‘Sufficient,’ he replied.
‘Sufficient? What the hell does that mean?’
‘Sufficient to get what I need from you, if you want to save his life.’
Harry heard a gurgle from Freya.
‘And sufficient to kill him if I don’t.’
‘I’ve told you, you can have the damned painting — what kind of sick game are you playing with our son’s life?’ Harry yelled.
‘I’m not playing any game, Mr Kipling. I’m telling it to you plain and simple. Your wife has told me you keep an emergency glucagon injector kit in your fridge. That will restore your son’s sugar levels, so long as you don’t leave it too late.’
There was another terrified gurgle from Freya. Harry gave her a desperate look. She was pleading to him with her eyes.
The American took a further reading of the patch on Tom’s arm with Freya’s phone. Another warble. He held it up to Freya and then to Harry.
2.5.
Tom, still chewing, had perspiration gouting down his face and his eyes seemed to be losing focus.
Harry knew that a prolonged glucose level below 2 would damage the central nervous system irreparably if allowed to continue for too long, and any sustained level below 1 would likely be fatal in a short time.
‘I’ll give you the bloody painting!’ Harry blurted. ‘I’ve said I’ll give it to you, if you’ll just promise to leave my family alone and not hurt us. And give Tom the injection he needs. Do we have a deal?’
‘Fine,’ the American said. ‘We have a deal. You give me the original picture and we’re out of here.’
Harry hesitated. ‘OK, there’s a small issue.’
‘Uh huh?’ Kilgore said.
‘It’s not here, it’s in a storage depot for safe keeping, half an hour from here.’
The American made a play of studying his watch. ‘So, Mr Kipling, forty minutes to get there, a generous fifteen minutes to retrieve the picture, then forty minutes back. That’s a little under two hours before, I’m hoping I’m estimating correctly, your boy lapses into a coma that he may not come out from. Maybe you should get going?’
‘Right away,’ Harry said, his eyes darting to the doorway.
‘I think it might be a good idea if I and one of my colleagues came with you, no disrespect, but just to keep you honest, if you know what I’m saying?’
‘I’ll take you with me to get the painting if you give my son some more sugar right now. Get the glucagon kit from the fridge, it’s on a shelf in the right-hand door.’
‘Oh, I know where it is, thank you. And it stays there until I have the original painting.’
‘At least give him some more of the doughnut.’
The American shook his head, then said, coldly, ‘Mr Kipling, you are not in any position to negotiate. Listen up very carefully. Are you listening?’
Harry hesitated, then nodded.
‘Good, here’s the deal. I’ll give the boy a mouthful of doughnut now. We go get the painting and we bring it back here. Soon as you bring it into the house and I’ve verified it, he gets his jab of glucagon. Do we understand each other?’
Harry glared at him. ‘We understand each other.’
Kilgore walked out of the room. Moments later he returned holding a sealed opaque pack and held it up for Harry to see. It was the glucagon injection kit. ‘I’ll take this with us, let’s call it insurance, hey? Just to make sure we all get back safely.’
One of the heavies stepped behind Harry, freed his hands, then patted him down and removed his mobile phone from his pocket, laying it beside Freya’s on the coffee table.
86
Tuesday, 5 November
As he turned out of Mackie Crescent, steering the Volvo with shaking hands, and glancing in the mirror at the sinister masked faces of the two men on the rear seat, Harry subtly edged the speed up over the 30 mph limit, to 40 mph then 45 mph, hoping against hope he might get stopped by a police car.
The heavy in the back’s name was Ross or Russ, he had overheard in an unguarded moment from his captor-in-chief. Harry felt like he was in a nightmare, and to add to the feeling, the sky through the windscreen ahead of him was constantly lit up with flaring and exploding fireworks.
Fireworks of anger were exploding inside Harry. And frustration at his helplessness.
‘You’d better mind your speed,’ the American rebuked sharply.
‘Yes — sorry — I... I’m a little nervous.’
‘Yeah? Well your driving’s making me nervous. Stay within the goddamn limit. You don’t mind if I smoke?’ he said, lighting a cigarette.
‘I like the smell, I only quit recently myself,’ Harry said, slowing down, trying to appease the man. His brain was in turmoil, he kept thinking about anything he could do, but fear for Tom’s life and fear for Freya kept him driving obediently to the limit, as he turned onto the A27, then stuck to a regulation 70 mph all the way towards his destination.
Twenty minutes later, as he turned off the dual carriageway and threaded through the urban streets of Worthing, the seaside town to the west of Brighton, he suddenly saw a blaze of flashing blue lights ahead — and felt a flip of hope. Maybe it was a roadblock and they’d be stopped? A drink-driver check? Please God.