Age of Heroes (33 page)

Stannard’s expression showed confusion, which rapidly became alarm. Roy heard him shout, “Chase, no! Don’t!” But it sounded as though his voice was coming from deep within a hurricane. Everything for Roy was a churn and a roar and a thunder.

And an abrupt, engulfing blackness.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Location Unkown

I
T OUGHT TO
have been a Black Day. The days preceding it had been Black Days, very Black, but today it seemed as though something had given way inside Josie, like a plank breaking under too much weight, and she was just empty.

Give it a name
, she heard Dr Aeschbacher say inside her head.
Give it a colour
.

But it had no colour, this nothingness, this lack of caring.

So it was White.

A new kind of day.

A White Day.

The room where she was being held prisoner was beautiful. The ceiling had leaf patterns moulded into its plasterwork. The walls had marble panels. The floor was laid with carpet so thick it was like a mattress. The upholstery on the furniture was silk brocade, the wooden parts painted gold. The bed was a handsome oak four-poster. There was a vast mirror above the fireplace and a glistening glass chandelier overhead. Josie had never stayed anywhere so ostentatiously, opulently rich. If only she were here of her own free will. If only she was not a prisoner in this gilded cage.

The room was part of a large suite; that much she had been able to work out. It was either an apartment or belonged to a swish, exclusive hotel. Double doors led to a living area, where her jailers resided. They were on guard duty in there, and seemed to spend most of their time watching football. All day long the TV blared the cheers and boos of stadium crowds, a sound that rose and fell like waves crashing on a beach. Every so often they would switch to a music-video channel for a change, or else porn, but generally it was football. From the way they yelled at the screen, the games seemed to exasperate them more than bring them enjoyment. The players on the pitch were, to a man, cripples and incompetents, except when one of them scored a goal, which elevated him to godlike status.

Josie caught only glimpses of the jailers, who all communicated in English with a variety of accents, most of them Baltic-sounding. Now and then, when the doors were opened, she would see them sprawled on the sofas – big men, blockily built, with rugged faces and meaty complexions, stubbly scalps and a variety of beards and moustaches. There were always three present, and the roster changed constantly. She guessed there were ten of them in total. Ten men, just to keep little her under lock and key.

Why did she need that many jailers? Why did she merit such a lavishly grand prison? What was this all about? Why on earth would anyone hold Josie Young captive? What had her father done?

Since waking up in the suite three days ago, these questions had raged around her head. It was agonising. She had spent most of the time in bed, curled up, her stomach in knots, a hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming. Meals came, meals went; sometimes she ate, sometimes not.

After three days, however, resignation set in. She didn’t have the energy to stress over the situation any more. She just had to accept it. This was where she was, and this was how things were. She couldn’t alter it. She could only live with it.

Thank God for Benedikt. On several occasions Josie had looked at that splendid gilt-framed mirror and thought how she could smash the glass and use a shard to open up a vein. Without Benedikt, she would have done it.

Benedikt had been provided with a camp bed in a corner of the room. He had been asked for a list of the medications she needed, and doled out the pills as and when required. He never left her except to fetch a meal tray from the other room or go to the bathroom. He was a constant, levelling presence.

He was scared. He admitted that to her on the very first evening, shortly after she was forced to record the video message for her father. He had no more idea than she did what was happening and he hated being trapped here. But, he told her, his primary goal was to look after her. That consideration overrode all others.

Still, she had noticed his hands trembling as he uncapped a bottle of her lithium tablets, and seen how his shoulders hunched whenever he went into the other room and spoke to the men. Bravery had its limits. Benedikt was saying all the right things, but inside he was as close to snapping as she was.

O
N THIS
W
HITE
Day, when Josie realised she no longer felt anything, not even afraid, she began to think hard about where she was.

What the purpose was for her being here.

Her mind was working with uncanny clarity. It was as though the Whiteness of the day had somehow freed up a mental logjam. Instead of returning again and again to her obsessions – herself, her inadequacies, her mistakes, her shortcomings, the general pointlessness of her existence – she found she was paying attention to things outside her. She was making connections, letting logic drive her.

It was midmorning. Bright sunlight filtered in around the edges of the curtains, which were kept shut by order of the jailers. Josie and Benedikt were forbidden from opening them and looking out, and so far they had both obeyed the edict.

Now Josie padded across the spongy-carpeted floor to the windows. Benedikt was dozing on the camp bed, his breathing heavy and slow. Josie cast a glance at his sleeping form, then at the double doors. It was football in the other room, of course; the fans were roaring their tribal chants.

She knew already that she was in a city. She had heard traffic grumbling outside and church bells chiming the hours. She knew it was a city in mainland Europe, because the sirens of the emergency vehicles gave a tinny two-tone toot you didn’t get anywhere else. But which city?

She raised the curtain edge ever so slightly and put an eye to the chink. The suite was high up, on perhaps the seventh or eighth storey. It had a commanding view of a broad avenue, some monumental-looking buildings, tram tracks, a slow parade of smart, clean cars. There was a palatial office block across the way. Down at street-level Josie saw shops – branches of chains that sold high-end goods – and a couple of coffeehouses. The people passing along the pavements were well dressed and almost exclusively white. A crocodile of schoolchildren threaded along behind a teacher. A walking-tour group followed their guide in a gaggle, taking photos.

“What are you doing, Josie?”

She dropped the curtain shut. Benedikt was awake and frowning.

“They said do not touch the curtains,” he said. “Do not even go near the windows.”

“I had to have a look.”

“What do you think they would do if they caught you? It would not be good.”

“Well, they haven’t caught me.” She walked back to the four-poster. “And even if they had, they wouldn’t hurt me.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because I’m a hostage, aren’t I? They need me alive and well.”

“But not so much me, eh? You they might leave alone, but me, I am not so important. Poor old Benedikt Frankel might suffer while Josie Young does not.” He laughed hollowly, uncertainly.

“I wouldn’t let that happen.”

“How would you prevent it?”

“I would threaten to kill myself if they even raised a finger against you.”

“You mean it.”

“I do.”

Benedikt pushed himself up to a sitting position. “Are you all right, Josie?”

“Fine.”

“You just seem... It is not like you to be so bold. So assertive. Not like the Josie I have known. Not that this is bad, far from it.”

“Listen, Benedikt. I’ve been thinking. About this whole fucked-up situation we’re in. I don’t know what these men want with me. They haven’t said, and won’t say. But I have my suspicions.”

“We should not even be talking about this. What if one of them walks in?”

“Football’s on. They’re busy. But if you’re worried, come and sit next to me over here. We’ll keep our voices low.”

Benedikt, with a furtive glance over his shoulder towards the next-door room, joined her on the bed.

“Why me?” Josie said. “Why, out of everyone at the Gesundheitsklinik Rheintal, all those celebs and execs, did they go for the least valuable patient? Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

“Your father. You told me he’s an IT specialist. A troubleshooter, yes? He has wealthy clients. He must also be quite wealthy himself if he can afford to meet the clinic’s fees. So they are ransoming you to him.”

“But it still doesn’t make sense. By Gesundheitsklinik standards Dad and I are small fish. There are people there from families worth billions.”

“Perhaps one of his clients is displeased with his work. They have gone to these extreme measures to get him to finish a piece of coding that didn’t meet with their standards.”

“Bit far-fetched.”

“Or perhaps somebody wishes to learn the secrets of somebody else, a rival. What is it called? Industrial espionage. Your father might know how to access the computer system of some corporation, and another corporation would like to him to reveal that knowledge. You are the method for persuading him. They are using you to twist his arm.”

“I’d buy that, only...”

“Only...?”

Josie took a deep breath. “I’m not sure my dad actually is in computers.”

Benedikt’s eyes narrowed. “It is a lie? A cover story?”

“Maybe. I think so.”

“So his real work is perhaps not so legitimate? At the clinic we hear rumours about this sort of thing. Clients whose money is not honestly earned. Their bills are paid by transfer from bank accounts in unusual places, like the Cayman Islands. They’re businesspeople, but it is not clear what business they do. The rule for us staff is not to worry about it, definitely not ask questions about it. So possibly you should not tell me anything more.”

“But if I’m right about him, you ought to know. Because it’s relevant.”

“Okay,” said Benedikt warily.

I
T HAD NEVER
been much more than a hunch, but over the years Josie had become increasingly less convinced that her father did what he said he did for a living. The older she got, the better idea she had of how an IT specialist looked and behaved. Whatever the image of a computer expert might be – bespectacled, nerdy, somewhere on the autistic spectrum – Roy Young was not it. He did not fit the stereotype.

When she was younger, just a kid, and her parents were still together, she had watched her father leave on his business trips. Every couple of months he would disappear for a week or so, and each time there was something about the grimness of his expression that made her feel he wasn’t simply going off to fix some company’s software bugs or set up an intranet, whatever he claimed. He looked like a soldier going into battle. Her mother, too, became tense whenever he was away. She tended to drink more wine than usual, and every now and then Josie would hear her crying in the night.

Then there were the arguments. Her parents would start rowing over stupid things, inconsequential things, and sometimes it would escalate and Josie would overhear comments she was not supposed to. Once, her mother said, “If you just had a bloody normal job, Roy, I could be a normal wife to you, the wife you want. But you don’t. You go abroad and you, you... do what you do... and how am I meant to deal with that? How am I meant to look you in the eye when you get back, knowing where you’ve been and why?” To which her father replied, “I was straight with you from the start, Alison, when I got into this. Maybe I should have just kept schtum. I thought you deserved to know everything. You didn’t seem to mind back then. But now it bothers you? How I keep a roof over our heads and food on the table? How I pay for a big house in Highgate and the lifestyle you enjoy so much? My mistake. What a fool I was. I apologise.” It didn’t sound like an apology to Josie, lying in bed upstairs; it sounded pained and angry.

The first time Josie attempted suicide, her mother managed to pin the blame for it on her father. As Josie lay in a cubicle in A&E, sedated, wrist bandaged, she was dimly aware of her parents holding a whispered conversation at her bedside. The specifics were unclear, but at one point her mother, between muffled sobs, said to her father that it was hardly surprising the daughter of a man like him would try to kill herself. “It’s in the blood,” she said. “Death is in the blood.” Josie realised later that, woozy and groggy as she had been, she might have imagined this. Why would death be in her blood? What could that possibly mean? There was every chance she had misheard, or misunderstood. But the phrase stayed with her nonetheless.
In the blood
.

When her parents finally divorced and her father moved out, her mother went into a spiral of depression, becoming a borderline alcoholic. One evening, well into a second bottle of prosecco, she wandered into Josie’s room and ranted about her ex-husband, calling him destructive and false. “Everything about him is tainted, Josie,” she said. “I can’t stand to be in this house, knowing how the mortgage is paid for. Our home is huge and beautiful and horrible. I’m surprised the taps don’t drip blood. These clothes I’m wearing, the car I drive, my own body... Everything he touches is polluted by him. Polluted. Except you, my sweet,” she added, enfolding Josie in a wine-pungent hug. “You’re perfect. You’re holy. Never forget that. You mustn’t let his stain infect you. You must stay pure. It’s too late for me, but not for you.”