Martha did blame Richard for not succeeding in getting the cash together. When this was all over, she was going to think seriously about where their relationship was heading. Richard apparently kept secrets, so what kind of a marriage was it? Then there was his work. She knew he dealt mainly with intellectual property, a field becoming increasingly complicated in the age of technology, but if the kidnapper was someone they knew, it was more likely to be from his contacts than hers. Yet Martha could understand Richard’s reluctance to give the police any names as she too didn’t want to think it was one of her staff or clients behind something so cruel.

Martha then thought of Richard as a man. Did she still find him attractive? Did he see her as attractive? After twenty years together it was unsurprising that the physical side of their marriage had cooled down. They were busy people, generally exhausted when they fell into bed each night, but wasn’t it the same for most married couples? Martha knew she was as much to blame for this indifference as her husband. It was too easy to flop into bed each night with nothing more than a perfunctory goodnight kiss – they may as well have shaken hands.

So why, Martha asked herself, did they work so hard? Was it for the financial gain, which admittedly they both enjoyed, or for the work itself and the status it afforded them? Richard was always quick to tell new acquaintances what he did for a living, but then Martha was proud of her work too. She’d built the company from nothing and relished the challenge and the competition from other firms. So, they were perhaps equally at fault on the work front. And as for secrets and lies, she wasn’t wholly blameless herself. Maybe she should remember that when she was lecturing her husband.

Martha’s head was spinning with all this soul-searching, when really what she was afraid to admit was that she, or both of them, had failed as parents. Of course, her son hadn’t been taken because they were terrible parents, but this was a pretty big wake-up call and perhaps Danny hadn’t received the attention he deserved from her.

Again, Martha offered a whispered prayer, or was it a bargain with God? If Danny were returned safely to them she would do things differently; she would work fewer hours to be home for him coming in from school. She would also let him have a pet, something he’d wanted for years, even if it was a big, slobbering, hairy dog.