‘The CEO told me I should do what I had to do.’

This Ricky guy stepped around to face me, the gun barrel still in my mouth. A big guy in a black suit, a white shirt, a tie. Klara was struggling against the grip of Teresa. When my daughter tried to turn toward me, Teresa suddenly jabbed the barrel against the right temple of my daughter. She did it with such force that Klara cried out in pain.

‘What the fuck,’ I yelled.

Now it was my turn to get jabbed in the head by a gun barrel. It hurt. Badly. I felt as if I had been knocked sideways.

‘No talking,’ the guy said. ‘You’re bringing us to them now.’

‘Bringing you to who?’ I asked.

Teresa hissed at me:

‘You want a bullet in your daughter’s head you keeping acting stupid.’

‘I want to see Agnieska,’ I told Todor.

‘She’s not here,’ he said, approaching us.

‘She’s already passed?’ I asked, my voice hushed.

Todor looked directly at me.

‘She is elsewhere tonight,’ he said.

‘What do you mean by that?’ I said.

‘I got her to go somewhere else so she wasn’t involved in all this.’

‘She’s not dying?’ I said, my voice raised.

‘She’s just fine. But I had to find a way of getting you back here. So I got her sister to call you and spin that little story.’

‘You fucking creep,’ Klara yelled and was rewarded with another hard poke in the temple by Teresa and her gun. When she cried out in pain Todor waded in, whispering something to Teresa.

‘You fucking stay out of this,’ Ricky shouted at Todor. The priest turned on him.

‘You might have the gun … but you don’t have the baby. And your “CEO” assured me that we are going to try to do this all as civilly as possible.’

‘Talking nice ain’t gonna make this come out the way the CEO wants,’ Ricky said.

‘And if you want your boss to end up with his baby,’ Todor said, ‘you will stop acting like the thug that you are and be reasonable.’

Then he turned to me and said:

‘I’m going to need your cooperation here, Brendan. I apologize for playing this trick on you. However, what I can promise is that, in exchange for helping us, no harm will come to the mother … and you will be well remunerated for all this.’

‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘The guy with the gun to my head is one of Kelleher’s bodyguards. And, like Crazy Teresa here, he’s being paid serious money to get Amber back?’