The righteous men

CHAPTER TWELVE

Friday, 6.10am, Seattle

Will felt his face pale, the blood draining from it. His head seemed light, insubstantial. He read the message again, scouring it for some clue, some indication that it was a cruel hoax. He looked to see if he had been 'bcc'd', which would make this spam, sent out to millions. Maybe the Beth subject line was a coincidence. But there were no such signs. He looked for a 'signature' at the foot of the page. Nothing but junk. His palms were sweating as he turned on his cell phone.

He scrolled down to B and pressed Beth, the first one to pop up.

Please answer. Please God let me hear her voice. The phone rang and rang, with one tone suddenly shorter than the rest: it was diverting to voicemail. Hi, you 'we reached Beth… He crumpled as he heard her voice, surrendering as a memory floated into his head. The very first time he had asked her out, it had been via a message on her answering machine. 'Unless it would be wildly inappropriate,' he had begun, 'I wondered whether you'd like to have dinner on Tuesday night.' 'Wildly inappropriate' had been his way of checking that she was single.

'Hello, this is Beth McCarthy and the answer is no,' came the reply, also left via voicemail, 'it would not be wildly inappropriate for us to have dinner on Tuesday. In fact, it would be lovely.' Will had replayed that message a dozen times when he had first got it. Just as he replayed it now, in his head.

He stopped the call, his hands now quivering as they punched in the number of the hospital. 'Hello, please page Beth Monroe. It's her husband. Please.'

Hold-music by Vivaldi; he was begging it to stop, praying for it to be broken by the sound of someone picking up and for that someone to be Beth. Please let me hear her voice. But the music played on. Eventually: 'I'm sorry, sir, there seems to be no response to that page. Is there another doctor who can help?'

A sudden realization. She might have been gone for hours.

Perhaps she had been snatched from their bedroom in the dead of night. They had spoken just before twelve her time.

Maybe the kidnappers broke in at five? Or six? Or just now?

He was a continent away, fast asleep when he should have been protecting his wife.

He looked at the email again, his heart shrinking as he saw those words. He tried to focus, to look at the top of the message, among those strange, garbled characters. There were some numbers, today's date and a timestamp which said 1.37pm, even though that was several hours away. That gave no clue.

Of course, he should call the police. But these people, these bastards, seemed so adamant — as if they really would not hesitate to kill Beth. Uttering the word, even if only as a thought in his own head, made him recoil. He regretted formulating the idea, as if expressing it made it real. He wished he could take it back.

In a moment of childish need, he realized he wanted his mother. He could call her — it would only be mid-afternoon in England now — and it would be such a comfort to hear her voice. But he knew he would not. She would panic; she might have an anxiety attack. She certainly could not be trusted not to phone the police, or at least talk to someone who would talk to someone who would. The simple truth was, she was too far away for him to manage and his mother was a person who needed managing. (He realized that word was a Beth-ism. It made sense that she was one of the very few people who knew how to handle Will's mother.) He was slowly beginning to see that there was only one person he could ask, only one person who might know what to do. His hand shook as he reached for the hotel phone, something telling him this was not a call to be made on a cell.

'The office of Judge William Monroe, please.' A click.

'Janine, it's Will. I need to speak to my father right away.'

Something in his voice cut through all social convention, conveying to his father's secretary that this was indeed an emergency. She dispensed with her usual small talk. She simply cleared out of the way, like a car making room for an ambulance. I'll patch you through to his car now.' A cell phone, thought Will, worriedly. He would have to let it pass: more important now just to get through.

It was a relief to hear his father pick up. The child in him felt glad, like a boy who persuades his dad to come kill a spider. Good, now an adult was going to take over. Doing his best to hold his voice steady, he told his father what had happened, reading the email out slowly, twice.

Monroe Sr's voice instantly dipped; he did not want to be overheard by his driver. Even in a whisper his voice had the deep authority that made him such a presence on the bench.

Now, as he would in court, he asked all the pertinent questions, pressing his son to tell him everything he could work out about the sender. Finally, he delivered his ruling.

'It's obviously an attempt at extortion. They must know about Beth's parents. It's a classic ransom demand.'

Beth's parents. He would have to tell them. How would he even utter the words? 'I want to call the police,' said Will.

'They know how to handle these things.'

'No, we mustn't do anything too rash. My understanding is that kidnappers usually assume the victim's family will go to the police: they factor it into their planning. There must be a reason why these people are so determined to avoid the police being involved.'

'Of course they don't want the police to be involved! They're fucking kidnappers, Dad!'

'Will, calm down.'

'How can I calm down?' Will could feel his voice about to break. His eyes were stinging. He did not dare try speaking again.

'Oh, Will. Listen, we're going to get through this, I promise.

First, you need to get back here. Immediately. Go to the airport right away. I'll meet you off the flight.'

Those five hours in the air were the hardest of Will's life. He stared out of the window, his leg oscillating in a nervous tic that used to strike him during exams. He refused all food and drink, until he noticed the cabin attendants were eyeing him suspiciously. He did not want them thinking he was poised to blow up the plane, so he sipped some water. And all the time he was imagining his beloved Beth. What were they doing to her? He began to picture her tied to a chair, while some sadist dangled a knife- It took all his strength to stop such thoughts before they had picked up speed. His guts were turning over. How could I not have been there? If only I had phoned earlier. Maybe she called the cell phone when I was asleep…

Throughout he held the BlackBerry in the palm of his hand. He hated everything about this accursed machine. Even to glance at it brought those chilling words right back. He could see them now, hovering in the air in front of him:

INVOLVE THE POLICE AND YOU WILL LOSE HER.

He looked at the device, so small yet now containing so much poison. It was sleeping: no signal at this height. He kept watching the icon at the top right that would tell him when it was back within range. As the plane began its descent, he stole peeks at it. He did not want the flight attendants reminding him that they had asked that all 'electronic devices be turned off until the aircraft has come to a complete stop'.

At last he could see the sparkle of New York City in mid afternoon. She's down there. The bridges, the highways, the flickering necklaces of light criss-crossing the whole vast metropolis. She's there somewhere.

He glanced down at the BlackBerry, moist with his own palm-sweat. The icon had changed; it was back in range. Now the red light was flashing. Will's heart began to pound. He looked at the new messages flowing in, each one taking its place like passengers in a bus queue. Some round-robin cinema listing; an internal message from work about a lost notebook. There was a news-alert from the BBC website.

Tributes have been pouring in for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gavin Curtis, found dead this evening, apparently from a drugs overdose. Police say he was found by a cleaner in his Westminster flat, with an excess of a sedative drug in his bloodstream. It's believed that the police are not looking for anyone else in connection with Mr Curtis's death…

Will was staring out of the window, just imagining the media frenzy back in London. He had grown up there: he knew what the British press was like when its blood was up.

They had been gunning for this guy for days and now they had got their scalp. Will could not remember the last time a politician had actually topped himself: when it came to taking responsibility, resignation was usually as far as they would go, and even that had become pretty rare. This Curtis must have been guilty as hell.

And then one more message popped into the BlackBerry. the same hieroglyphic string that refused to reveal itself.

Subject: Beth.

Will clicked it open.

WE DO NOT WANT MONEY.