The Prisoner(6)

“Dead.” Then seeing her expression, I hurried to explain. “My father died from cancer earlier this year, my mother when I was a child.”

“That’s very sad, I’m sorry,” she said, and briefly touched my arm.

“Thanks.”

“What do you do?” she asked, taking a sip of her coffee.

“Mainly kitchen work. But I’ve just been let go.” I gave a little shrug. “Not enough customers.”

“What kind of work are you looking for?”

“Anything. I’m saving to go to college.”

She nodded. “How are you with housework?”

“Good,” I told her. “When my father was ill, I did everything.”

The woman looked at me for a moment, then raised her eyebrows. “You followed me home last week.”

“Not to see where you lived, or anything,” I replied hastily, in case she thought I’d intended to rob her. “I saw that you were upset and I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

She gave a sad smile. “That was very kind of you. Perhaps we should introduce ourselves. I’m Carolyn Blakely and my husband has just left me for someone younger, which is ironic really, because I’m only thirty-three and I never felt old until he told me she was twenty-five.” She reached for her bag and pulled out a silver lipstick, rubbing it on her lips until they were as red as her nails. “I work long hours in PR, I have my own business, and my husband used to do most of the cooking, which was great. And most of the shopping. And some of the cleaning. So, basically, I’m looking for someone to do all the things he used to do, but with none of the moaning.”

“I won’t moan, I promise,” I said, and she laughed.

“You might have to work late in the evenings because whatever time I get home, I’d like dinner ready, and that might mean ten o’clock. But once you’ve done the shopping and cleaning and prepared the meal, the rest of the day is yours.”

“Really?” I couldn’t believe my luck. “And that’s all?”

Carolyn smiled. “Yes, I think so. What’s your name?”

“It’s Amelie, Amelie Lamont.”

“Pretty. Is it French?”

I nodded. “My father was French.”

“Shall we talk about salary before either of us go ahead?” I folded the blueberry muffin wrapper into a tiny triangle and nodded. “I’m offering a hundred and fifty pounds a week. Would that be alright?”

I’d known it was too good to be true. I did the math, but I couldn’t stay in a youth hostel forever and with a room in a house costing around a hundred and twenty pounds a week, it would only leave me thirty pounds for food, transportation, and any essentials I needed. But I didn’t want to turn it down. Maybe I could work other jobs in around this one. Or make her apartment so clean, and make her such lovely meals, that she’d give me a raise.

“Yes, that would be fine,” I said. “Thank you. You won’t regret it, I promise.”

“Great! Then perhaps you can come back with me now and I’ll show you your room. I’d rather you saw it before you move in, in case you don’t like it.”

I stared at her, not sure I’d understood correctly. “It’s a live-in job?”

“Yes. I hope that’s not a problem?”

“No, no, it’s not a problem at all.”

“Shall we say a month’s trial period? When can you start?”

Tears flooded my eyes. “Now,” I said, blinking them away. “I could start now.”





CHAPTER EIGHT


PRESENT

How long have I been here? I’ve lost any sense of time, I don’t know whether it’s night or day. I hold my breath, listening for the slightest sound. There’s only silence, and the thought that I’ve been abandoned here makes my heart race.

I force myself to remain calm. They brought me food, they’ve given me a bathroom, they wouldn’t have gone to the trouble if they intended to leave me to die. The thought of food brings back the taste of the porridge I’d eaten. Was that breakfast?

In the silence, a mosaic of images flit through my mind. I see myself as a seven-year-old, in the cemetery in Paris, watching my mother’s coffin, stripped of its garnish of lilies and roses, being lowered slowly into the ground, then as a nine-year-old, arriving in England with my father, moving into the house with the brown door, two streets away from where my English grandmother lived. I see myself two years later, at her funeral, and three years ago, at Papa’s. There are more memories clamoring for attention, of others loved and lost, but I push them away before the tears can come. They are too recent, and my grief still too raw. If I think of them, I’ll break. And I can’t break, not here, not now.

I turn restlessly on my mattress, lie with my face to the wall. Has anyone noticed yet that Ned is missing? Carl will have, if he isn’t involved in our abduction. He reports to Ned at eight each morning; if he can’t find him, he’ll know something is wrong. But if he is involved in our abduction, if he’s one of the men holding us here, no one will notice that we’re missing for hours, maybe longer.

My sigh fills the darkness. This isn’t even about me, it’s about Ned, about who he is, Ned Hawthorpe, the son of billionaire philanthropist Jethro Hawthorpe, founder of the Hawthorpe Foundation. I am nobody. I don’t know why they didn’t kill me straight off. If they had, it would have served as a warning that they were serious—me dead, Ned taken. But if this is a kidnapping, not a payback killing, maybe they think they can demand a higher ransom for the two of us. They can’t know that Jethro Hawthorpe won’t pay a penny to get me back. And there’s no one else who would.