Hostage by Clare Mackintosh

EPILOGUE

SOPHIA

I’m squashed between Mum and Dad in the taxi. It’s like I’m the net in the middle of a tennis court, words bouncing from Mum to Dad to Mum to Dad. Over and over.

Over my head.

That’s what people say if they don’t understand something. It goes over my head. Like water when you’re drowning.

Grown-ups think what they say goes over my head. They think that because I’m little, I don’t hear what they say. They think I don’t understand. I listened to Dad talking to Derek one day. I heard Derek say, There’s just something about him and Dad say, Mina won’t hear a bad word against him. When they saw me, they stopped really suddenly, and Derek said, Do you think—and Dad said, Don’t worry. It’ll go over her head.

It didn’t.

They were talking about Rowan.

I’m not stupid. I listen really hard. I listen all the time, and when I don’t understand something, I find out what it means. Mostly, I ask Mum and Dad, but sometimes…sometimes I ask Rowan.

Rowan doesn’t think I’m too little to understand. He tells me about climate change and why the prime minister isn’t any good and why bad things happen, like fighting and wars. Lots of grown-ups use a different voice when they talk to children, but Rowan doesn’t. You’re a clever girl, he says, I don’t want to patronize you.

I don’t know if I’m clever. I’m interested in stuff. I find things out, and then my brain remembers it. Like before Becca locked us in the cellar, when we were having tea and Dad was talking about making cakes with me, and Becca said you could make biscuits from dandelions. There are loads of websites, she said.

Mum lets me use the internet to look up recipes, so I looked. Becca was right. It’s called foraging, and it means eating weeds. You can eat loads of weeds. Nuts, berries, nettles…loads. I made acorn muffins. Mum and Dad said they liked them, but then I heard Dad say they tasted like someone cleaned out a hamster cage, and I was so angry, I almost burst.

There are nettles in the park, just behind our house, and blackberries and flowers you can eat, like violets and sweet rocket and mallow.

Not foxgloves, though. Foxgloves are poisonous.

But how can I know that? I’m only nine years old…

Rowan’s taught me loads. Like how to find things on the internet without anyone seeing you were looking. Like how to stop Mum and Dad from thinking I’m up to something.

He’s good at acting. Mum really likes him, but Dad doesn’t, even though they shake hands like they’re friends. Rowan says soon Dad will start playing the lottery again, and look what happened last time.

When Mum first said she was going to start flying again, I thought Rowan would say something—he was so angry—but he kissed her and said, Well done. I know what a big decision that was. After, we went to the park, and he said how Mum could have protested against climate change, and instead, all the papers were writing about the brave flight attendant going back to work.

“You should tell her,” I said, but he shook his head.

“I’m working on a better plan.”

He wouldn’t tell me what it was, not for ages and ages. Instead, he said he had a big secret—a huge secret I couldn’t tell anyone. Not Derek or Cesca and especially not Mum or Dad.

It was all him. The hijack, Becca, everything. He was sorry about us being in the cellar—said I had to understand it was all for the greater good. When the trial started, Mum and Dad often spent all day in court, and Rowan and I waited in the café and drank hot chocolate. There’s more to the story, he said. I think I can trust you to do the right thing. He gave me a chapter each day, like bedtime stories.

I’ll let you know when it’s time, he said.

He’s forgotten what he said about when he broke the law. When he threw a rock at a policeman. My age absolved me of my act, he said. I had to ask what that meant. It meant he was nine. Too young to be arrested.

My age.

So I can’t wait, can I?

I baked the biscuits at the weekend. Mum was glad of the distraction, she said and pleased I wasn’t finding the court case too much. Dad came into the kitchen when I was putting in the flowers. “What’s cooking?” I had four mixing bowls, with a different flavor in each one.

“Shortbread,” I said. “With edible flowers.” I suddenly felt all hot, sure they could read my mind. Did Rowan feel like this when he threw the stone at the policeman?

“Looks awesome,” Dad said.

I decorated my biscuits with bits of petal, pushed into the top of the shortbread. Yellow pansies on some, blue borage on another one, pink roses on the last one.

And on the final batch, a tiny piece of purple foxglove petal.

That’s something else Rowan taught me: hide your secrets where people are looking.

The police will find out, you see, afterward. I’m not stupid. There’ll be an investigation, and they’ll do blood tests and find foxglove, and they’ll know I put it in my biscuits, quite a lot of it in fact, so it would look suspicious if three of my batches had the right flower on them, and the foxgloves ones were plain.

They’ll know it was me. But they can’t arrest me.

I’m only nine years old.

Our taxi moves forward, then stops again. Dad sighs. “It would be quicker to walk.”

“Sophia’s exhausted,” Mum says. The window is open, and I can smell the dirty fumes from the cars around us choking the streets. “If we miss the train, we’re definitely eating. I’m ravenous.”

“I’ve got my biscuits,” I say, as though I’ve just remembered. I open my rucksack and take out the paper bags. One for each of us.

“What would we do without you?” Dad grins. I smile too, but my heart is going pitter patter pitter patter. I wonder how long it takes to die from foxglove poisoning. I wonder how much it hurts.

We munch the biscuits, and our taxi moves another tiny bit.

It’s done.

I feel better now. Sometimes you have to do something bad, to stop more bad things happening. Just like Rowan did.

“These petals are just lovely,” Mum says. She leans across to see Dad’s and then mine. “Oh—you gave Rowan your favorite ones.” She looks at Dad and laughs. “She wouldn’t let me pinch one!”

“Well, it was nice of him to look after me during the trial,” I say. “And he told me loads of interesting stories. He lives on his own, and I don’t think he has anyone to make him biscuits. And I really, really wanted him to have the purple ones.”

My parents exchange a glance that says bless! and I know they’re thinking how much they love me. What a good girl I am. “You’re very kind.” Dad puts an arm around me and squeezes me against him. I look at them both, and I give them my sweetest smile.

“That’s okay. I think he deserves them.”