Free Wrong Time, Wrong Place by Simon Kernick

against the side of his head. It felt cold and hard, and Akhtar swallowed. Was this some kind of divine punishment for his adultery? If it was, then he prayed God would be merciful. He’d never intended to hurt his wife or his children, nor to bring shame down on his family’s head.
    ‘I don’t want any trouble,’ he said, conscious of the fear in his voice.
    ‘I’m going to give you a task, Mr Mohammed,’ answered the gunman in a tone that was worryingly calm.
    His accent was English, so Akhtar knew he wasn’t Mika’s pimp. So who on earth was he? And how did he know who he was? Even Mika didn’t know his last name.
    ‘If you carry it out as instructed, you’ll be free to go and you’ll never hear from me again. If you fail to do what you’re told, however, I will kill your girlfriend here. Slowly, and very painfully.’
    Mika gasped. She was still standing in the middle of the room, unmoving, and Akhtar wondered why she didn’t try to escape. Then he saw the restraints round each of her ankles, separated by barely a foot of thick chain, and he realized she was as helpless as he was. He gave her a small, hopeful smile and she stared back at him with those big oval eyes of hers that had so bewitched him in the first place, and he wished by all that was holy that he’d never met her.
    ‘And just in case Mika dying slowly isn’t enough to motivate you,’ continued the gunman, still keeping the gun pushed down on Akhtar’s head, ‘there’s this.’
    He held out a remote control and switched on the TV. For a couple of seconds the screen was blank and then an image of two people having sex on an unmade bed appeared – the woman on all fours facing the camera, the man kneeling behind her, his eyes closed. The gunman pressed another button and the couple began moving frantically on the screen, their joyful moans filling the room.
    Akhtar cringed as he recognized himself. Had Mika set this all up? Had she hidden a camera when they’d been making love? He looked up at her and she shook her head silently. This was nothing to do with her.
    The gunman switched off the TV and the room fell quiet once again. ‘I have more than an hour of footage taken on three separate occasions, showing you in various acts with Miss Donovic here, all of them as explicit as this. Some of them even more so.’ The gunman chuckled. ‘But then you knew that, didn’t you? If you don’t carry out the task, I’ll have copies of the footage delivered to your wife, your mother, and the imam at your mosque.’ He calmly reeled off the names of all three, and the addresses to which the copies would be sent. All of them were correct.
    Akhtar felt his breathing increase and he began to tremble. If this happened, his life would be finished. No one would forgive him for such a rank betrayal of everything his community held dear. He’d be shunned. Exiled. Worst of all, his children would grow up knowing the terrible, sordid sins he’d committed.
    ‘What do you want me to do?’ he whispered.
    ‘It’s a very simple job that will take you less than an hour. You’re to deliver that’ – he pointed to a plain black backpack sitting on the floor next to the fleabitten sofa – ‘to the address on the contacts section of this phone.’ He dropped a BlackBerry into Akhtar’s lap. ‘It’s a twenty-minute drive from here, half an hour if the traffic’s bad. You need to be there for eight a.m., and I know you’ve got a TomTom in your car, so if you leave now you’ll make it on time. Park right outside, then as soon as you’re ready to go in, call me immediately. Do you understand?’
    Akhtar nodded. He had no idea how this man knew so much about him, but the fact that he did made it imperative that he did what he was told. Then perhaps he could emerge from this nightmare unscathed and go back to living his life again. He would miss Mika – God, he would miss her – but in the end it would be a very small price to pay.
    The gunman