Kidnap by Tommy Donbavand Page A

for his size!
    I reached the gap in the fence and tossed my bag through. Then I dropped to my hands and knees to crawl to freedom. I’d almost made it when the security guard grabbed hold of my ankle.
    â€œGet back here!” he snarled.
    For a moment, I almost kicked the guard away in an effort to be free – but then I remembered some of the best advice I’d ever been given. “If you fight back, they’ll get you for assault as well as shoplifting, and that’s far more serious.”
    Good tip, that. I didn’t want to spend a night in the cells charged with attacking this poor fella. He was only doing his job, after all. So I went straight to plan B – distraction…
    As the security guard tried to drag me back through the hole in the fence, I reached into my bag and pulled out the jar of pasta sauce I’d just nicked. Lying back to get the best angle, I tossed it over the fence.
    SMASH!
    The jar smashed to the ground right beside the guard, making him jump and briefly let go of my ankle. This was my chance. I scrambled to my feet, grabbed my bag, and ran onto the waste ground.
    This time, I turned rather than using my mirror and grinned at the sight of the guard trying to squeeze his way through my escape hole. It wasn’t happening.
    â€œI’ll get you next time, you little monster!” he roared after me.
    No
, I thought.
You won’t, mate.
    I didn’t stop running until I reached an alley part-way into the estate and I spotted a female figure waiting with her own bag at the other end. It was the person who’d given me that good advice.
    â€œI thought you weren’t coming, Joe!” she said with a grin. “Thought you’d been caught.”
    â€œNo chance,” I said. “Slippery as an eel, me.” I eyed the other bag with interest. “What did you get?”
    My fellow shoplifter opened her bag and I studied her haul – two packets of minced beef, a few cans of cola, and… what was that at the bottom? It couldn’t be! A laptop! That would bring in a few quid.
    â€œYes!” I said, offering a high-five. “Nice one, Mum!”

CHAPTER 2
JOB HUNT
    Before we go any further, I want to get a few things straight…
    My mum and me – we’re not bad people. Yes, we have to go on the rob for food, and for stuff we can sell to pay the bills. But that’s not our fault.
    It’s my dad’s.
    We used to be a happy family. We had a nice house, a nice car – and we even went on holiday every year. Nowhere posh like Spain, or whatever, just to a cottage in Cornwall – but itwas always brilliant. My dad even bought me a surfboard one year so I could have a go at hitting the waves. Honest to God – a proper surfboard!
    Then, he met
her
.
    Liz.
    She worked at the place where my dad was the manager – a company that printed menus for restaurants and takeaways. If you’ve had one of those pushed through your letterbox recently, chances are it was printed at my dad’s work.
    My dad and Liz started to have an affair behind my mum’s back. Actually, that’s a bit of a joke. He was so rubbish at hiding where he’d been and who he’d been with that he got found out almost straight away.
    He wasn’t a very good actor, my dad.
    I remember the night it all kicked off as though it was yesterday. He came home late from work, saying they’d had to reprint some pizza deliverymenus in a hurry because they’d spotted a couple of spelling mistakes. He said he wasn’t hungry after staring at pictures of pizzas all evening long. He just wanted to have a bath and go to bed.
    So he dumped his wallet and his keys on the side just like always, and went upstairs to run his bath. Only the idiot left the receipt from his hotel room there, without thinking. The hotel room he’d been at all evening with…
her
.
    My dad was already in the bath when my mum found the receipt and