As he drove away Richard’s thoughts constantly drifted to Danny. The pain of not knowing where or how he was, was almost unbearable. It clouded Richard’s rationality when he needed to remain calm. He thought about the letter from the kidnappers which he would like to have seen for himself, not that he didn’t believe DI Radford, but you can tell so much from a person’s handwriting – their education for a start and their class in society. Even the paper they used would help build some sort of picture – but it was denied him, adding to his frustrations.

There was to be no solace gained from his visit to the bank. The bank manager, Mr Hopps, wasn’t forthcoming at all. He was a man of pinched features set in a thin face with an unfortunate look of a Dickensian character. He raised a suspicious eyebrow when Richard asked to surrender his ISA accounts and withdraw the balance of their current account, all in cash. Richard then asked to borrow a hundred and fifty thousand pounds, also in cash. When set against his salary of nearly ninety thousand pounds a year and Martha’s income from the agency, Richard thought this not an unreasonable figure. He even offered their house as collateral.

Although stressing the gravity of their situation, Richard refrained from telling the bank manager about the kidnapping. With hindsight maybe he should have done – it might have gained the man’s empathy, but it seemed to him that the fewer people who knew about it, the easier it would be for them as a family to recover from the trauma afterwards.

Mr Hopps prevaricated, claiming to need time to consult head office, particularly as Richard wanted the money in cash, even the loan – a very unusual request. He would have to return the following day when the manager would have received advice from the powers that be.

Richard regretted his previous action of taking such large sums of money out of the bank. He’d known it had been a risk at the time yet he couldn’t possibly have foreseen Danny’s kidnapping.

On the drive home, Richard’s phone rang; it was Jamie, his clerk from chambers.

‘Hey, where are you? You have meetings scheduled for this afternoon, and the police have been here asking what time you left yesterday. What the hell’s going on – are you in some kind of trouble?’

‘It’s Danny. He’s been kidnapped.’ Verbalising the reality brought tears to Richard’s eyes and he pulled off the road to continue the call.

‘That’s bloody terrible! When did this happen?’

‘Yesterday. He didn’t come home from school and this morning we’ve had a letter demanding money. I can’t come in today, Jamie – can you cancel my meetings and anything in the diary for tomorrow?’

‘Yes, of course, we’ll cover for as long as it takes. Can we do anything else?’