‘I’m sorry, Jo. I’m so sorry.’
My breath catches in my throat and I rush towards him, leaning down, trying to hug him. He reaches up his arms and pulls me tight. The tears burst from my eyes, soaking his neck, but he holds onto me, whispering that he’s sorry.
‘They’ve got Millie,’ I sob, my chest aching with the force of my grief. ‘Why, Ash? Why have they taken Millie? I feel like I’m dying inside, and I don’t know what to do.’
He holds me as I sob, stroking my hair.
Finally I push myself back a little so I can look at his face.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers again. ‘If I hadn’t escaped I might be with her now. I just wanted to get away. I didn’t know they’d taken her. If I had, I would have let them take me wherever they wanted if it meant I could be there for her.’
‘Shh, Ash. We don’t know that you’d have been taken to the same place.’ I nearly choke as I say the words. ‘They might have taken you somewhere remote and killed you. You did the right thing.’
Ash shakes his head. ‘I heard them say that their boss wanted me unharmed, so they wouldn’t have killed me. Why would they say that? What do I have to offer that I need to be kept safe?’
I push myself further upright and stare at him. Why would they want to keep him safe? A thick wedge of unease settles in my chest and I turn to Becky.
‘Ash is a surgeon, a paediatric surgeon.’
Becky nods, her eyes narrowed.
‘If they didn’t want Ash harmed, could that be because they wanted him to perform an operation?’
I don’t want to say the rest, but all I can think is that maybe – just maybe – they wanted Ash to perform an illegal operation, and that Millie was taken as a threat – do the surgery, or Millie suffers the consequences. But they don’t have Ash now, so what will happen to Millie?
Then a worse thought hits me. What if they wanted Ash to perform an operation on Millie? Were they after her organs? Is my Millie to be used as a donor for another child?
41
The doctor monitoring Ash’s progress had finally managed to persuade Jo and the detectives that his patient needed some rest, and Ash was glad to be alone. Solitude gave him more time to think, though, and his thoughts were painful.
Jo appeared to be latching onto every possible explanation for what had happened to Millie so that she didn’t have to contemplate the most obvious reason a child would be abducted. He wished he could do something to make this easier for her, but he couldn’t. And now she’d gone, he couldn’t even hold her tight.
There was a light knock on the door, and a nurse breezed in carrying a pile of towels, giving him a wide smile. ‘I’ve brought these for you. I’ll pop them by the washbasin, shall I?’
The policeman guarding the door watched as she took them into the bathroom, and then appeared to lose interest as she was clearly a member of staff.
Ash watched her through the open door. She glanced over her shoulder and fiddled with the towels in a way that looked furtive. What was she doing?
The nurse stood at the bathroom door, her eyes flicking towards the open doorway to the corridor where the policeman was sitting.
‘I’ll just straighten your pillows for you,’ she said in a singsong voice as she walked towards Ash.
He didn’t want her to rearrange anything. He was fine, and was about to tell her not to bother when she lowered her brows and gave a small shake of the head. She bent low over him and whispered in his ear.
‘There’s something for you between the towels. Don’t tell the police. You’ll be sorry if you do.’
She fiddled with the pillows while Ash stared at her with wide eyes.
‘There you go, love. All comfortable now.’
And with that she left the room, casting a cheery smile at the policeman.
Ash could feel his heart racing. Slowly, he manoeuvred himself out of bed. He had convinced the doctor to fit him with a long CAM walker boot rather than a plaster cast, and he pulled his crutches from where they were leaning against the wall.
One slow hop after another, he made his way into the bathroom and shut the door. The towels were on a low storage box, and he sat on the closed lid of the toilet and reached over to feel between them. There was something solid there. He knew immediately what it was.
He glanced at the door, wishing he was able to lock it, as he carefully eased a tiny mobile phone from between the towels and switched it on. It wasn’t locked, and the screen told him he had a message.
you shouldn’t have run, ash. you’ve made it all so much harder. no more mistakes. you know what’s at stake. tell anyone about this and you can kiss goodbye to millie. i’ll be in touch.
Ash stared at the words on the screen. He closed his eyes and opened them again, for a moment wondering if the hypothermia had left him delirious, but the words were still there, still bearing the same message. He dropped his head low between his knees, terrified he would pass out. The room was spinning as if his concussion was coming back, and he reached out to grab hold of the basin to steady himself.
Taking big gulps of air, he gradually lifted his head and looked at the words again. What did they expect me to do? Maybe he shouldn’t have run, but he’d panicked. What should I do?
They knew he was here, but how? The police had told him they were keeping everything under wraps.
He wanted to respond to the text or call the number, but the message said, ‘I’ll be in touch.’ If he tried ringing or texting, it might be the wrong move. It might be another mistake. Until he heard more, he would have to keep the phone with him. It was the smallest phone he’d ever seen, but if he left it hidden in the towels another nurse might come along and move them. They would be sure to find it and tell the officer on the door.
Ash stood up from the toilet seat and limped to the door, opening it a crack. The room was empty, but he could see the back of the policeman’s head through the frosted-glass section of the wall. Checking that the phone was set to silent with vibrate turned off, he decided the only safe place for it was in the bed with him.
He had a sudden vision of Jo’s face – her fury and disgust if she learned that he had kept anything from the police. He closed his eyes. Whatever he did now, it would be wrong.
42
Tom has told me that he’s going to make a decision soon about whether to hold a press conference and that it’s a decision he won’t take lightly.
‘If we knew for sure that this was a kidnapping for ransom, Jo, we wouldn’t entertain the thought of announcing Millie’s abduction,’ he says.
I know what he means, and what he isn’t saying. The kidnappers might panic, and no one knows what that might mean for Millie.
‘We’re beyond that point now, though. The kidnappers have to know that we – the police – are involved, so I hope that if we put out a general appeal people will come forward. Someone might have seen something.’
The ward sister has offered us an office where we can talk, and Tom is doing his best to explain things gently, but I feel more drained with every minute that passes.
‘I think it’s time for you to go home,’ he says. ‘We’ve heard nothing from the kidnappers since Ash and Millie were taken, but Ash is a well-known doctor, and although we’ve done our best to give him anonymity, he’s in a hospital bed and his real identity is bound to come out soon. People are going to start asking questions. I can’t see anything to gain by keeping what’s happened under wraps any longer. Do you have any thoughts?’