Hostage by Clare Mackintosh

TWENTY-EIGHT

PASSENGER 1G

I prefer working alone, as a rule. It presents less risk (careless talk and all that), and it avoids those circular discussions involving lots of talk but little action.

Some jobs, however, are too big for one person.

Over the years, I had found myself leading a splinter organization of the climate action group I had joined following my epiphany. It had the thrust and energy of a political movement but without the hierarchy or restrictive constitution, and although we were small, we were passionate about saving the planet. I was careful about who joined us: I didn’t want mavericks, wild cards, lone wolves. I wanted team players. I wanted followers, not leaders.

Slowly, I was building my flock.

Environmentalists are unfairly stereotyped by the media. They depict us with dreadlocks and beards, bare feet and filthy hands. They have us on benefits, living in woods, hugging trees. They make fun of us, and by doing so, they subtly influence society to make fun of the issues too. If environmentalists are a joke, then environmentalism must be one too.

In reality, we come from all walks of life.

One of my early recruits was a housewife. I was administering a Facebook group, then called Household Hacks. The content had long since been skewed toward avoiding single-use plastic, and I was beginning to introduce more animal images, seeing how much they resonated with the group. Soon, I would change the name of the group to Climate Action and merge it with the main group. In this way, I had already built a community of more than a hundred thousand people from all over the world.

On our own, we are a small voice; together, we can roar.

A woman had posted a crying emoji on a picture of a starving polar bear.

Eight days into my plastic-free month, she typed. Struggling tbh, but this has reminded me why I’m doing it!

A mini thread sprang up beneath her post.

Well done you—keep at it!

Thank you My husband hates the wax wraps on his sandwiches. Any tips for alternatives?

Foil?

Of course! Duh, I’m such an idiot!

She mentioned her husband a lot. He liked things a certain way, it seemed. Including her.

Tried the solid shampoo this morning. Apparently I’m scaring the horses LOL!!!

Individually, her posts barely stood out—the group had three thousand engaged members, and topics moved swiftly down the page—but when you read them carefully, as I did, they built up a picture.

Anyone know how to get grease out of a tie? Please????

Is it okay to replace butter with low-cal spray?

Her profile picture showed a pretty blond with a tiny waist. Clicking back through the years, she appeared to have shrunk, dwarfed by the man by her side in almost every photo, his proprietorial hand on her shoulder.

I messaged her.

—Hi! Thanks for being a top contributor on Household Hacks! I just wanted you to know I really appreciate your posts and comments.

Her reply was instant.

—Wow, thanks! It’s such a friendly group. I don’t know what I’d do without it!

—Did you get the grease out of the tie?

—No. This was followed by a sad emoji, a single tear running down its cheek.

—Ah, well, I messaged. Plenty more ties in the sea!

—Tell that to my husband…

We chatted most days. I had a sense already of who this woman was and what her marriage was like, but even I was taken aback when, after a few days without hearing from her, she messaged to say she’d been in the hospital after a nasty fracture to her left forearm.

—It wasn’t his fault, she said. He’s been really stressed at work.

My fingers, poised on the keyboard for what I’d expected to be another chatty session that veered only slightly into therapy on her part, curled into fists. That poor woman. That bastard man.

—Has he done it before?

The screen blinked at me. I pictured her hesitating. Typing then deleting, typing then deleting.

—Most days. Never this bad before.

And so, as if I’d turned on a tap, out it all flowed. All his excuses, all his mistakes. I looked between her lines for the truth and was horrified by what I found. He had successfully isolated her from her friends. He controlled their finances, what they did, where they went. She was completely trapped.

—I run a climate action group, I told her. There are thousands of us all over the world, but just a handful who organize things behind the scenes. You should join us.

—I wouldn’t be any help. I couldn’t pour water from a boot even if the instructions were on the heel, my husband always says!

—You’re always coming up with solutions in the Hacks group. You’d be a really valuable addition to the team.

—My husband wouldn’t like it.

—Don’t tell him. It’s all online. I’ll give you a pseudonym. It’s a great group. I know the others are going to love you.

That was the clincher. What she needed, more than anything else in the world, and it was so simple. She just needed someone to love her.

—Okay then! Thank you so much xxx

Later, she told me shethanked her lucky stars that I happened to message her right when she needed someone to talk to, but there was no luck involved. No fate, no fortune. We are conductors of our own orchestras and can choose who plays in them.

I did feel responsible for Sandra, though. I was the only person she’d told about her husband’s abuse—how could I not help her? She was deeply insecure, but beneath the lack of confidence, I saw a thoughtful, compassionate woman who cared about the environment. I saw a woman at rock bottom. A woman whose crippling self-doubt made her grateful for every crumb of praise. Someone so used to having her own thoughts replaced with someone else’s that she could be sculpted into exactly what I needed.

I saw an opportunity.

To the shepherd, his sheep.