Simon Kernick - Deadline

Andrea's homepage appeared on the screen and she clicked on her emails. There were a dozen or so unread messages but it was the one at the top, sent from a numbered hotmail account, which was the one they wanted. The word WARNING was written in block capitals in the subject column, and there was an mpeg attachment.

Without speaking, Andrea opened it. The message said simply WATCH THE FILM.

'Oh God,' she whispered.

Bolt tensed. 'Maybe it's best if we watch it first, Andrea,' he told her, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. He didn't add 'just in case', but he knew he might as well have done.

She took another deep breath. 'No. She's my daughter. I've got to watch it.'

'It might not be a good idea, Andrea,' said Marie, moving into the study.

'I am going to watch it. End of story.' Her words were loud and decisive, cutting across the room.

She clicked on the mpeg file and waited the twenty seconds while it downloaded. The room was silent, with just the peaceful sound of birdsong coming from outside. With trembling fingers, Andrea pressed play.

Immediately the screen was filled with the top half of a person sitting against a wall in a darkened room lit by a bulb somewhere off camera. The quality of the recording was very good, and Bolt knew that he was looking at Emma even though she had a black hood over her head. The arms beneath the black T-shirt she was wearing were pale and skinny – kid's arms.

Andrea let out an audible gasp.

For two or three seconds Emma sat there, absolutely still, then very slowly she lifted a copy of The Times until it was in full view. The main headline was about the run on the Northern Rock bank. The camera panned forward until it was fixed on the date in the top right-hand corner. It was today's.

'See, Andrea, she's alive,' said Bolt, trying to sound positive. 'And it's in their interests to keep her that way.'

Andrea didn't reply, but her shoulders were shaking, and he realized she was crying silently as she stared at the screen.

The camera panned back so that Emma's upper body filled the screen again, and then the camera suddenly jerked as the cameraman reached forward with a gloved hand and roughly removed the hood, revealing the pretty teenage girl with the dark blonde hair and blue eyes whose photo was all over Andrea's house.

Her face was terrified and wet with tears as she stared uncertainly at the cameraman. He appeared to give her some sort of off-camera prompt because she started to speak slowly and carefully, her voice shaking with fear. 'Mum, they say that if you get the money, they'll let me go tomorrow night.' There was a pause again while she appeared to get a second prompt. 'But Mum… they said that if you don't pay, or you call the police… they said they'd hurt me really bad.' As she spoke these last words, the tears began streaming down her face again.

Then she gave a short, tight gasp. She was staring at something they couldn't see, her eyes widening.

'Oh God, Emma,' whispered Andrea, her own voice cracking under the strain. 'My darling.'

And then they all saw it. The long, gleaming blade of a hunting knife, held in a black-gloved hand, moving slowly across the screen from right to left, mocking the viewers with its presence. It belonged to the cameraman. His camera shook very slightly as he moved it. The knife then changed direction as he leaned forward, pointing the tip of the blade at Emma's neck. His arm beyond the glove was covered by a black sweater. There was no flesh showing, nothing that might even hint at a possible ID.

A torturous wail came from Andrea. 'No, Jesus, no. Please. Don't hurt her.'

Bolt felt his mouth go parchment dry. This was total sadism, something that, thank God, was rare.

In twenty years of law enforcement he'd only seen something similar once before when he'd been forced to watch an old amateur videotape showing the sexual abuse and torture of a three-year-old child by her father. That was a long time ago now, yet he could still remember every single moment of it. It was etched on his brain, like a hideous tattoo, for ever. This was similar, and in a way all the more painful in that the victim's mother was someone he'd once cared so much for.

'Let's turn it off, Andrea,' he said. 'We can watch it again in a minute.'

She shook her head angrily. 'No. I've got to see. I've got to.'

On the film, Emma pushed her body back into the wall, craning her head away from the blade, her pale blue eyes never leaving it.

Andrea's moaning grew louder. It stopped abruptly when the point touched Emma's neck. Ever so gently.

No one moved a millimetre. It was as if they'd been frozen to the spot, staring hypnotized at the screen. Waiting.

The blade traced a slow path up the contours of Emma's jawline and on to her cheek, brushing the pale skin but not breaking it, stopping at the fold of skin just below her left eye. Half a centimetre more and it would be caressing the eyeball.

Bolt steeled himself for what might be coming next. He prided himself on being a hard man, able to take some of the worst experiences the world had to offer, but this was tearing him up inside, and he wondered how many times this scene would be revisiting his dreams in the coming months.

The knife jerked suddenly to the side, moving like a flash. Disappeared from view.

Emma cried out. Andrea gasped. Bolt stopped breathing.

The camera panned inwards. Emma's face filled the screen. Terrified, but unmarked. Then it panned slowly outwards as Emma crumpled into a fetal position on the bed she'd been sitting on, dropping the newspaper to the floor. She was wearing handcuffs, and there was a chain attached to her ankle by a metal loop.

Something dark rose up from the bottom of the screen, blocking out everything else, and the camera took several seconds to focus on it. It was a piece of paper. Five words were written on it in bold capitals: NO POLICE OR SHE DIES. The camera stayed on it for a full three seconds. Then abruptly the film ended and the screen returned to Andrea's homepage.

For a long moment, no one spoke. Bolt was just about to open his mouth to tell Andrea to be strong, that this was just a method for the kidnappers to cow her into submission so that she'd get them the next tranche of the ransom money – even though he wasn't at all sure he still believed it – when in one ferocious movement Andrea swept the laptop off the table, sending it crashing to the floor, and jumped to her feet. She grabbed the photo of Emma as a toddler from the desk and hugged it to her chest. Pushing Turner out of her way, she swung round to face Bolt, her tearstained face a twisting combination of torment and rage.

'They're going to kill her, aren't they? That's it.

They're going to kill her.'

Bolt put a hand on her arm, trying to calm her. 'No, Andrea, they won't. They're far better off keeping her alive.'

'They told me not to involve the police, and now look at you all here.' She yanked herself free and swept an arm dismissively round the room. 'Standing around while my daughter's tortured by these bastards. Oh God. If they kill her… if they kill her, it's all going to be my fault!'

'You can't think like that, Andrea,' said Bolt, but she was no longer listening. She strode rapidly past them and out the door, leaving behind only grim silence.

Marie went after Andrea, and Bolt heard them both going up the stairs, Andrea shouting at Marie to leave her alone. He stood staring at the upended laptop, wondering how Andrea was ever going to recover from this. Finally he broke his reverie and turned away.

Turner was speaking into the phone. When he hung up a few seconds later, Bolt asked him if they'd got a trace.

'He called from a mobile on a back street in the N18 postcode. But he switched off straight away so we can't follow him.'