She tutted. ‘Men can be so defeatist. You know Jo doesn’t love you. She’s proved it.’ Ash wished he had never told her about Jo’s refusal to marry him.
‘I’m sorry, but I need to go,’ he’d said. ‘I’ll call you from work tomorrow. Is that okay? Then we can have a proper talk.’
Her voice became soft, seductive. ‘All right, I’ll let you go – for now. Think about me, though. Don’t stop even for a minute. While you’re sitting at the table, imagine what I would be doing to you if I were there beside you. Feel my fingers touching your thigh, exciting you – a tiny promise of how we would be spending the afternoon if you were with me.’
Ash shuddered. ‘I will,’ he lied.
Ending the call, he pushed his head back against the study door and stared at the opposite wall – at the large photo he’d had framed of Jo dancing on a beach with Millie, both of them laughing as their hair caught in the breeze.
What had he done?
Despite her anger at his continued refusal to leave Jo, Ash hadn’t thought for a moment that the woman who had become so obsessed with him could be involved in Millie’s abduction – at least not until he received the call telling him to drive to the retail park on the outskirts of Bolton.
‘We need to talk,’ she’d said, and the shock of hearing her voice when he had been expecting a demand from the kidnappers had struck him dumb.
‘Why?’ he’d finally cried.
She had known what he meant. ‘I’ll explain. You’ll understand, and be glad. I need to see you. I’ve missed you.’
She wouldn’t say anything about Millie, only that she’d call again when someone was ready to pick him up. He’d ended the call in despair. He was the reason Millie was missing. It was his fault.
He had hoped he might be able to reason with her, and when the man he now knew as Terry had taken him to meet her, he really thought he might be able to bring Millie home.
Terry had dropped him at the bottom of a steep incline.
‘Out you get,’ he’d said, a smirk on his face as he glanced at Ash’s booted leg. ‘If it was up to me, you’d be at the bottom of the fucking reservoir. It’s your fault Martin’s dead, but she wants you in one piece for some reason, so you can bloody well walk.’
The path was greasy with rain, the cobbles slipping under his crutches as he hobbled along. He was being made to suffer, if not by her, then by Terry. The rain fell steadily, and with each gust of wind he was drenched by fat drops thrown from the leaves of the overhanging trees.
As he slowly rounded a corner, he saw her sheltering in an old stone pavilion, warm and dry in a black fleece-lined coat and ankle boots, her hair braided and tied back in a low bun. He glanced at the steep slope above her. Two men in jeans and black padded bomber jackets stood watching.
Who was this woman? He realised he didn’t know her at all.
Finally he made it, out of breath and soaked to the skin. How he would get back down the slippery path he had no idea, but for now he had to focus on persuading her to let Millie go.
He stood in front of her, not knowing how to greet her, terrified of angering her and putting Millie at further risk.
She reached out a hand and touched his face. ‘Why did you run, Ash? I wish you hadn’t. It nearly spoiled everything.’
‘Why would I not run? I didn’t know why I was being taken – I had no idea you had anything to do with it. Why didn’t you tell me what you were planning?’
She gave a sad smile, as if he was being deliberately obtuse. ‘You’re not much of an actor – Jo would have known. You had to look scared.’
‘Well that wasn’t difficult. I was bloody terrified! But it doesn’t matter about me. Where’s Millie? What have you done with her?’
She frowned. ‘Don’t speak to me like that, Ash. You know I’ve done this for us – so we can be together without you losing her. Why would I hurt Millie? I’m going to be her mummy, and she’s going to love me.’ She gave a gentle smile.
Ash felt his throat tighten and burn with acid. She was insane.
‘Listen, darling,’ she said, lifting her hand to his face again. It took everything he had not to flinch. ‘You know I would do anything for you. I know the only reason you wouldn’t leave Jo was because you’d lose Millie. So I’ve solved the problem. You get to have Millie, and you also get me. Jo will be unhappy for a while, but what’s one person’s unhappiness against the joy of three people? We’ll be so happy in our new family.’
Ash had no idea how to respond. She was clearly delusional, but her two minders were watching, and much as he wanted to shake the truth of Millie’s whereabouts out of her, there was nothing he could do. He would have to play along, find out where Millie was and bring her home.
‘Where will we live?’ he asked.
‘Oh, don’t you worry about that. For a while we’ll stay close by. We won’t be found. I have property registered in other names, and we can stay hidden until the heat’s died down. Then we can go abroad. You want to go to Abu Dhabi, don’t you? I’ve already arranged new identities for us all.’
He leaned against a stone pillar and asked himself again, who was this woman? Millie wasn’t safe with her, whatever she said.
‘I don’t understand how you could have organised all this – found the people to come to the house pretending to be detectives, got us fake identities.’
‘I have a lot of connections. Lots of people owe me favours,’ she said, her voice indifferent, as if this was only to be expected.
He didn’t want to know any more. His daughter’s only chance was for this madwoman to believe he would do everything she asked. ‘What happens now? When can I see Millie?’
‘Not yet. Soon. If you hadn’t run away, you’d already be with her, but I can’t take you with me now. First, we need to give the police some misdirection, and that will take a bit of time, but it’ll be worth it. You must stay at home for the next three or four days, and then you have to leave – say you can’t bear to be in the house, that Jo is driving you crazy. Go to a hotel. After a week or two the police will stop bothering you on a daily basis, and then you can come to me. They won’t know you’ve gone immediately, so it will give us time.’
He didn’t want to ask what they needed time for.
‘I can’t walk out on Jo when Millie’s missing. No one would believe me capable of that. And what about work? I can’t just disappear from my job.’
She gave the tinkling laugh that he had once thought attractive. ‘You can’t work with a broken ankle, Ash. You’re going to be off for weeks, so it’s not going to make any difference. And then we’ll be gone. Come on, darling, we’re so near to getting the life we both want – the family we want.’
Ash pushed his hands deep into his pockets to prevent them from reaching for her neck. Violence didn’t come naturally to him, but this woman had his daughter.
‘You’d better go, for now,’ she said, gripping his upper arms. ‘I can hardly bear it, but we’ll be together soon, I promise.’
Ash forced himself to look into her eyes, and he saw the change the moment it came. She had recognised his fury and disgust at what she was doing, and her body stiffened, the grip on his arms tightening.