The Good Mother Read Online Free PDF Page A

You know I can’t tell you that you’ll see Cara again but, well, you never know, it might help.’
    Alice nods. She knows all this. She is practically a grown-up – her birthday is coming up soon and then she’ll be even older.
    ‘Can I go and do my homework now, Mum?’
    Another head ruffle.
    ‘Of course you can, love.’
    Alice leaves the room and strides up the stairs, almost managing two at a time. That was a close-run thing. It was bad having to lie to Mum. Because it wasn’t so much thinking about the last time she saw Cara that was bothering her. It was the fact that she knew where Cara was going.

Chapter 7
    Maybe there’s a ransom. Maybe that’s what this is about. Maybe the Captor wants money for our lives. Or our body parts. Maybe I’ll lose lock by lock of my hair, or finger by finger of my hand. He can take every limb from my body before he touches one strand of Cara’s hair.
    Will Paul pay? We’ve had the debate while watching late-night hostage thrillers. Me and Paul curled up on the sofa, Cara sitting on the floor between us (if we’ve quietly ‘forgotten’ it’s a school night for the pleasure of her company). Is it ever right to pay a ransom? To give money to criminals? We’ve agreed that whether it’s right depends on the circumstances. Do they have a wife and family? Because it’s always the men, in these films, that go adventuring. All I did was stay safe at home. I even based the studio there. I hardly ever went out, not really, apart from to ferry Cara around – orchestra practice, concerts, parties, design classes, fashion shows … We deserve the safety we thought that gave us. I want to shout to him: ‘Paul, it’s always right to pay the ransom, if it’s you and me and Cara. However much money you have to raise’
.
    How much money could he raise, and how soon? Sell the house. The loft must have added a bit. Mine and Paul’s domain. Had there been a sibling it could have been her room. But no. So anyway, with the loft, with our Crouch End postcode – no Tube but lots of North London leafiness – we could be looking at £800,000? But the Captor might think it’s more. This might be a rented place I’m held in. He might not be a Londoner. He might believe the press, think we all live in garages worth two million pounds. And he might think that Paul being an ‘IT consultant’ means something, something lucrative. A desk in a corner office in a City building, rather than a desk in the corner of our living room and, whenever his mobile rings, a jump in the car to some industrial estate company that’s too broke to have a permanent IT team. The Captor might also think that because cupcakes are so popular, my company has been raking it in. That I’m doing corporate events or something. That millionaires come to my training sessions, not clever mums bored out of their wits by their decision to stay at home. He won’t realise it’s part inheritance, part being remortaged up to the hilt that keeps us there.
    So, all in all, I bet the Captor is asking for a million.
    A lot of money.
    It’s nice he thinks we’re worth it, Cara and me.
    But why take both of us? Cara is the more valuable one and with both me and Paul outside we could raise much more money.
    A thought strikes me.
    Would Paul be willing to pay for Cara? Considering?
    But yes. He must be. He can’t negotiate over her. He can’t say ‘Nah, one million pounds? You don’t know who you’re talking to, mate. I’ll just take the one. Five hundred thousand plus another twenty for your trouble.’ Because he must know that if he gets me back, but not her, he won’t have me at all.
    Why isn’t it light yet? Where is the sun when you need it?
    The police might tell him not to pay of course. Friends and remaining family might benevolently but wrongly advise that I would not want all our hard-won money given up without a fight. But what’s money? I would live in a caravan, overlooking the ocean. All I need is family