there now. No police, no calls, no diversions
I turn in my seat, half-expecting Holt to be sitting in traffic behind me or watching from across the street, phone in his hand. But I can’t see him. I fire off a quick text in reply.
Why would I do that?
I’m pulling away when my phone buzzes again in my lap. Another text, no words, just an image, a close-up picture of Noah’s face. His Spiderman glasses are gone. He looks serious, wide-eyed.
Terrified.
The angular black muzzle of a pistol is held at his temple by an unseen hand.
I swerve across the lane, an oncoming taxi missing me by inches and leaving a frenzy of angry hoots in my wake. Noah. My stomach turns over and for a moment I think I might be sick, swallowing back acid in my throat. An unwelcome memory returns, the last words Noah had said to me on Friday as he traced a shape over his little chest.
Cross my heart and hope to die.
Another message arrives seconds later.
Bring the baby to studio 7 and we can trade. Or you can let him die. Your choice.
I can’t drive. I can barely see, the picture of Noah’s terrified face burned onto my retinas. I pull over into a bus stop and sit for a moment, trying to control my breathing and the galloping, crashing of my heart.
My godson. My best friend’s son, her firstborn, a child I have known since the day he came into the world. Not my blood, but as close as I’ll probably ever get. Tara’s sweet, serious six-year-old, who somehow finds himself weighed in the scales with the baby now dozing in the car seat behind me. A stranger’s baby, an infant I promised to protect. Another innocent, a child I have saved from mortal danger. Can I really give her up now? Can I make that choice?
There is no right answer to this. No good outcome. I send a reply, the only words I can summon to mind.
Don’t hurt Noah
What happens to him is entirely up to you, Ellen
I put my head back against the headrest and take one last look at Mia. Her eyelids are heavy as she drowses in and out of sleep, her little cheeks pink and rounded like summer apples. Finally, I tear my eyes away from her and send a reply.
On my way
Hurry. You call the police, he dies
I put the new address into the satnav on the dashboard and pull out into traffic again, hands clenched tight around the steering wheel. The satnav says the studio complex is 2.2 miles away, a mile further than the police station. I follow the directions on autopilot but my mind is elsewhere, scrambling, racing, trying to think of a third solution to this impossible equation. But I can only see two: Noah or Mia. Mia or Noah. It’s that simple.
And by the time I’m pulling into the deserted car park, driving through drifts of leaves and rubbish, I know what has to be done.
My phone rings in my lap.
‘What’s happened?’ Stuart says before I can speak. ‘Why are you not at the station? You should be here by now.’
‘I can’t talk at the moment.’
‘Just park up in the visitors’ area, I’m going down there now, I’ll wait for you.’
‘I can’t, Stuart. Not anymore.’
‘What? I don’t understand, Ellen, what’s going on?’
I glance at the shotgun in the passenger footwell beside me. ‘I’m sorry, Stuart. There’s something else I have to do first.’
‘Tell me what’s—’
I press end and put the phone on silent, driving to the far end of the car park, to the rear doors that I ran out of five days ago. I kill the engine, sitting for a moment in the silence. Preparing myself. Running through it all in my mind.
Mia is dozing again, the motion of driving has lulled her into a contented sleep. I wish more than anything that we could be driving into the police station right now, into safety. For both children to be out of harm’s reach. But it can’t be.
No. This is the only way.
I make one more call, then spread out the big white blanket on the back seat, to get ready for what I have to do.
‘I’m sorry, Mia.’ I brush away a tear and reach for the straps of her car seat. ‘I’m sorry.’
*
The studio complex is just as I remembered it. A cavernous empty shell, the windows milky and crusted with dirt, long wide corridors rich with the smell of mildew