The Hardest Word

When Kevin came to, he had a splitting headache. He also found that he couldn’t see anything or open his mouth. A moment of panic ensued, where he imagined that not only had he lost his eyesight but his lips had somehow fused together as well. He forced himself to breathe in and out through his nose. After a minute or so, he managed to regain a degree of composure. He surmised that there was a strip of duct tape across his mouth. His head appeared to be covered in a hood or blanket, which did not make breathing any easier. He couldn’t remove it because his hands were tied behind his back. He tried to sit up, but his legs were tied together as well. In the end, it felt more comfortable to lie back down again, even though the floor was cold and hard.

  He had no idea how long he had been unconscious for. The last thing he could remember was being grabbed from behind and having a cloth pressed over his face. It had a sickly sweet smell and must have been impregnated with some chemical. He had tried not to breathe it in – but they had held it firmly in place as they bundled him into the back of a vehicle. He vaguely remembered having walked past a white transit van just before he was attacked. He’d tried to twist his head so that he could see his attackers, but the brief glimpse that he had managed to obtain told him nothing; their faces were covered by balaclavas. Once they had got him inside the van, one of them had sat on his chest pressing the cloth down firmly over his mouth and nose. Another must have been holding his arms. One of them hissed: “Why isn’t it working? Why’s he still conscious?” But the more he struggled, the more he needed to breathe, even though it involved inhaling through the cloth pressed over his face and he knew it was probably the wrong thing to do. After a minute or two, he felt the strength ebbing away from his limbs and that was all he remembered.

  He wondered where he was being held. If he listened carefully, he could hear people walking about on the floor above. There was some distant traffic noise, but not much else. The room he was in had a dank, musty smell. It was probably a cellar or basement. He tried wriggling about in the hope of loosening the bindings on his arms and legs, but only succeeded in banging his head and limbs repeatedly against what he assumed must be walls, boxes or pieces of furniture. Eventually he gave up and just lay there, panting from his exertions.

  It had become uncomfortably stuffy inside the hood and he longed to tear it off. He felt the same sense of panic returning that he had experienced when he first regained consciousness, but he told himself that he had to calm down and get a grip. After a few minutes of breathing slowly and lying still, it became slightly more bearable inside the hood. He tried to think rationally about his position.

  The important thing was that he was still alive; if they had intended to kill him, they would surely have done so by now. But why kidnap him? Money seemed the most likely explanation. If so, that might not be entirely bad news, because it suggested that they were professional criminals, who could be reasoned with.

  He felt confident that, as soon as his disappearance became apparent, the Bank would act – they would have people who knew how to deal with these situations. And if necessary, they would pay a ransom to ensure his safe return. It was common enough practice in a number of countries where they did business – although not, it had to be said, in the UK, where kidnappings were pretty much unheard of. But he couldn’t see any reason why the Bank would adopt a different policy here. After all, you couldn’t have a situation where your executives were being exposed to those kinds of risks and their employer didn’t stand behind them. And there was usually insurance to cover any losses that the Bank might incur.

  The trouble was, it might take a while for anyone to realise he was missing. In the meantime, he needed to come up with a plan to keep his captors happy. Here too, the likelihood that they were motivated by money was probably no bad thing. It would be a simple matter to transfer funds to their account. So he might even be able to talk himself out of there by just offering them cash. Half a million to a million seemed a reasonable starting point – high enough to make them think twice about turning it down, but leaving a decent amount of headroom for further negotiation. He resolved to go up to two if he had to.

  It wasn’t the thought of losing all the money that made him set a limit – the Bank or its insurers would pay out if the cash couldn’t be recovered. It was simply that it would be well nigh impossible to liquidate much more than that. Of course, if they wanted to push him higher, they could – but he’d have to start selling assets, which would almost certainly be noticed once it was widely known that he had disappeared. If they were professionals, they would know that. So it should be possible to persuade them that it was better to do a deal quickly for less than to hold out for more.

  Lulled by these moderately comforting thoughts, he eventually drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

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