Richard nodded and Radford’s next question was, ‘Are the kidnappers here?’

‘No. They came just after six, took the money and drove away.’

‘Not without some kind of struggle by the look of you?’

‘I tried to stop them – to get the gun – but I couldn’t.’ The look of dejection on Stone’s face told the detective that the man was suffering and possibly regretting his rash actions. Even though Radford would have liked to give Stone a rollicking, he could see the anguish in his face, so he got down to business.

‘Were they in the same vehicle?’ he asked.

‘Yes. I didn’t know what to do,’ Richard mumbled. ‘They said to wait and get a coffee so I thought they might have Danny nearby and I didn’t dare move. It’s been hours, I don’t know how many, but why haven’t they let him go? Why haven’t they rung me?’

Richard was distraught – his head dropped again onto the steering wheel and he sobbed, his shoulders shaking as his grief poured out.

Foster sent the armed response officers away and also the two uniformed men. He exchanged a look with his boss which held sympathy for Stone yet a degree of concern as they couldn’t answer the man’s questions. They, too, expected the kidnappers would have been in touch shortly after they’d counted the money and could think of no good reason why they had not.

‘Get on the phone, Graham, and request footage from all CCTV cameras on this road in all directions,’ Radford ordered. ‘Tell them what we’re looking for and the timescale is from six this morning to present time. Are you sure it was after 6am?’ he checked with Richard, who nodded. ‘Okay, if we get lucky, we might at least get a direction of which way the van headed when it left here.’

39

DAY 6

Danny and Lewis hurried down the stairs. It was getting light and Danny knew they might not have much time before Pete and Neil returned. Lewis paused as they passed the lounge door and stared at his sleeping mother.

‘Come on. We need to be quick.’ Danny grabbed his friend’s arm and dragged him towards the back door. The three-legged stool Lewis had found the night before was partially hidden under the stairs, together with a blanket, the same as the ones Danny used upstairs.

Just to double-check, Lewis rattled the door as hard as he could in a last attempt to open it without having to smash the glass panel. It wouldn’t budge.

Danny wrapped the stool in the blanket and offered one leg to Lewis. ‘If we both put our weight behind this and smash into the glass as hard as we can, it might break. Ready? One, two, three.’ The boys ran at the door. The stool seat smashed the glass but stopped at the metal grill on the outside.