Before It's Too Late by Jane Isaac

and pulled me away .
    When I was fourteen I met Karen Hardwick, the English teacher with the blonde hair and eyes that sparkled when she talked of her home on the coast in Dorset. She encouraged me to read Dickens, Austen, the Bronte sisters. My father studied English too and we practised together at home. He was so proud when I came top of the class in our English exam .
    The memories dried my tears and installed a sense of steeliness inside me. Why should I be punished for wanting a different life?
    As my thoughts cascaded, a rage of anger grew and flourished in my bones. How dare somebody take such liberties with my life, with the lives of my loved ones?
    I looked up at the grill. I couldn’t break out, I’d tried already. My only hope was to wait until my captor returned and find a way of distracting him .
    I sat forward, glanced around. Dead leaves and crisp packets in one corner covered my makeshift toilet. The opposite corner contained the empty bottles. They were too soft. I needed something hard. Something that would hurt him. I searched urgently until I remembered my heels. I was wearing them on Monday evening. Where were my stilettos?
    I moved around the pit, tossing everything aside. But even as I did so, I already knew the answer. He’d taken those too. My only weapon. I was left with nothing .

Chapter Nineteen
    Thoughts raced through Jackman’s head as he sat in his office and prepared for the emergency team briefing. A copy of the ransom request, an email in Mandarin, sat before him. He read through the translation:
    DO NOT CONTACT THE POLICE OR THE PRESS, IN CHINA OR BRITAIN, IF YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR DAUGHTER ALIVE AGAIN .
    We have Li Min. She is safe and unharmed at the moment .
    If you want to see her, follow these instructions .
    We require £25,000 in used bank notes. The notes should be tied together and taken to The Grove Industrial Estate, Birmingham. Enter the lay-by on Brambleside Way and leave the cash in the bin in an orange supermarket carrier bag at precisely 12.30am on 21st May. Li Min will then be released .
    At present, Min has food and water and is in good health. If you do not pay we won’t kill her. We will fail to meet her basic needs and she will die a slow death of starvation in captivity .
    The words were dramatic enough, yet the email felt lifeless; the Times New Roman font business-like and impersonal. Whoever wrote this chose their words carefully, ensuring that all the information they wished to impart was included, and no more.
    There was no sign-off. It wasn’t until Jackman scrolled down that the message was brought alive by a photo of Min. She was in what looked like the back of a vehicle. The internal paintwork was white. A couple of tartan blankets were strewn in the corner. Her eyes were closed, her body laid prostrate. She could have been dead, although there was something about the image that breathed life.
    Jackman thought back to previous kidnapping cases he’d worked. The emphasis was always placed on building up a relationship with the abductors, not only to open the possibility for negotiation but also to establish the state of the victim. In the Larkin case, he’d actually got to speak to the victim to prove she was still alive. Here, all they had was a rather tenuous-looking photograph.
    Jackman rubbed the bridge of his nose. No open lines of communication meant no chance for negotiation. No opportunity to obtain any potential indication as to the location of Min.
    He switched back to the email. This single message sent to Mr Li at 11.30am GMT yesterday had elevated the case to a new level. Min’s parents claimed they had followed the instructions, paid the demand. Yet, Min had not been in contact.
    Jackman thought hard. Min’s father owned his own factory. When Russell had spoken to Mr Li yesterday, he’d claimed that his staff had been loyal to him for many years. No incidents that he was aware of recently, nobody had suddenly left and the majority of his