Picture You Dead

85

Tuesday, 5 November

Before his brain could process the surreal sight that greeted him, both of Harry Kipling’s arms were seized and yanked sharply behind him. He stared, scared and bewildered, at three hooded strangers in the living room. Each wore a black balaclava, a black oversuit of the style worn by CSIs at crime scenes, and blue latex gloves.

Two of them, man-mountains, stood either side of him. He felt his hands being bound behind him by something sharp that cut into his wrists, and instantly he was forced down onto a chair.

Freya was on one sofa, grey gaffer tape over her mouth and securing her arms also behind her. He could see the terror in her eyes as she desperately tried to signal something to him, but he couldn’t figure out what. Tom was on the opposite sofa, his arms similarly taped behind him. His right sweatshirt sleeve was rolled up to his shoulder, revealing his diabetes monitoring disc. On the coffee table, beside a large tray of caramel, chocolate and sugar-coated jam doughnuts, lay a dark blue pen. Tom’s insulin pen. Beside it was Freya’s phone in its distinctive red cover.

Through the vortex of fear and confusion in his mind, Harry blurted, ‘Who the hell are you? What do you want?’

A tall, lean man, eyes, nostrils and mouth visible through the slits in the balaclava, stood beside Tom. He spoke with a Southern American accent in a voice devoid of humour. ‘Welcome to our little party, Mr Kipling. I’m real sorry if you’re hungry after your golf game, but these are all for your boy, I’m afraid. He’s a growing lad. We might need him to eat one or two to keep his sugar levels up.’

‘Those things are toxic for Tom!’ Harry said in fury. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

‘Oh, I know exactly what I am doing, Mr Kipling,’ he said. ‘You see, like your boy, I’m a diabetic too,’ he lied, and patted his own left arm. ‘I have the same Libre patch as him. Great technology, eh? Before the discovery of insulin in 1921, the life expectancy for a Type-1 diabetic was three to five years.’ He picked the pen up off the table. ‘Of course, I’m sure you and Mrs Kipling know that, right?’ He made a show of removing the cap of the pen, exposing the needle, then twisted the dial, with a series of clicks. Holding the pen up, he pressed the plunger and sent a small spray of the clear, sour-smelling liquid into the air. ‘Too much insulin can be just as fatal for a diabetic as too little.’ He smiled. ‘Guess you know that too, don’t you?’

‘We don’t need a fucking chemistry lesson,’ Harry said with impotent rage as he struggled to try to free his arms. He wanted desperately to protect his family and he could do nothing at this moment.

The American nodded his head slowly. ‘Oh, I think you do, Mr Kipling. You see, I’ve already given your lad a very large dose of insulin, way more than he needs. To counterbalance it, he will need to eat and keep eating something with very high sugar content. Doughnuts are perfect for that. But here’s the deal, Mr Kipling, before I give Tom one of these lifesavers, I need something from you.’

Harry saw the look of despair Tom gave him. An instant later, the American laid down the pen and picked up the phone. He entered a code, Freya’s, Harry presumed, tapped a yellow app that Harry instantly recognized, and held the top of the phone close to the circular Libre patch on Tom’s arm. The phone emitted a brief warble sound. Then the American walked over to Freya and held it up in front of her eyes. ‘See the reading?’

He then showed it to Harry.

It read 5, in black letters on a green band. Above the number were the words, GLUCOSE NORMAL. Beside them was a black arrow, pointing downwards. That was ominous, Harry knew. When Tom had first been diagnosed as a Type-1 diabetic, he had made it his business to learn everything he could about the disease. And one key thing he knew was that the safe range of blood-sugar level was, on the UK calibration system, between 4 and 9. A reading of 5 was fine, but at the low end. And the arrow pointing down indicated Tom’s sugar level was dropping.

‘I see the reading. What’s your point, whoever the hell you are?’

‘My point, Mr Kipling, is that twenty minutes before you arrived home, your son’s reading was ten. It’s come down pretty damn fast, wouldn’t you say? Do the math.’

Harry didn’t need to. How much insulin had this bastard given Tom? He felt a chill spiral deep through him. He stared at the American belligerently. ‘Why are you doing this? You need something? What the hell do you need? What do you want?’ He tried to stand up and was immediately pushed back down.

Kilgore jabbed the insulin pen at the Fragonard copy on the wall. ‘I think you know exactly what I want, Mr Kipling.’

‘That?’ Harry said. ‘You want that? Be my guest, fucking take it! It’s yours! Just leave me and my family alone, please.’ He was close to crying in desperation, fearful for his son. He looked at Freya, feeling utterly useless. His heart felt it was trying to twist out of his chest.

‘Here’s the problem, Mr Kipling,’ Kilgore said, quietly and calmly. ‘You need to understand it’s not that painting there that we want, but thank you kindly for the offer and we may well take that too, to avoid confusion. What we’ve come for is the original. My boss made you a very generous offer for it some while back and you snubbed him. I’m afraid my boss doesn’t like being snubbed.’

‘Fifty thousand pounds, right?’ Harry said, now realizing what this was about. He glanced desperately again at Freya and then Tom. Freya was trying to say something but all she could do with her masked mouth was make a murmuring sound. ‘Fine, I’ll take it,’ Harry said. ‘Do we have a deal?’

‘My boss doesn’t negotiate, and he doesn’t like rejection. I’m afraid we’ve gone way beyond that, Mr Kipling.’

Kilgore walked back over to Tom and again checked his blood-sugar level on Freya’s phone. He showed it to Harry.

It was now reading 4, the background had changed to yellow, the wording read, GLUCOSE LEVEL GOING LOW. The arrow was still pointing downwards.

Harry realized what he was saying. He’d been here less than five minutes. If the American was telling the truth, in just twenty-five minutes Tom’s level had dropped from 10 to 5. At that rate—

Before Harry could reply, the American showed the reading to Freya, who gurgled a sound of desperation.

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.