Free Old Enemies by Michael Dobbs

curiosity, like discovering a forgotten scar. She had reappeared to shine a light on part of him that he didn’t understand, one that he didn’t very much like. And now he was almost at her doorstep.
    She had once talked to him about her dream of a cottage with honeysuckle and roses climbing over the door, but this place wasn’t anything like that. It was talking millions. Much of the front garden had been given over to a driveway that led to an underground garage, while the rest was hidden behind a thick high hedge for privacy. A Mercedes roadster was parked on the paved standing, a clutter of umbrellas and road atlases spread across the back seat and a pair of woman’s sunglasses – Terri’s sunglasses – dangling from the mirror. Harry found it a short but weary climb up to the front door.
    He’d expected a cleaner or nanny, but she answered it herself, her eyes raw from crying. Neither said a word as she led the way up the stairs to a reception room on the first floor overlooking the garden at the rear. Harry hadn’t even taken off his raincoat. She crossed to the window, stared for some while; he saw her body shuddering while she struggled for control. As she remained silent, her arms clasped tightly around her, his eyes danced around the room and soaked up the objects that were the markers of her life – the books, the family photographs, a stack of jigsaws and games on a bottom shelf, the scattering of personal ornaments and heirlooms. A Christmas tree was leaning in one corner, waiting to be set and decorated.
    She sighed and moved away from the window. ‘It’s my son, Ruari. I think he’s been kidnapped.’
    It was his turn to stand silent for a moment. ‘What makes you think that?’
    ‘Ruari went for a heli-skiing trip from his school in Switzerland four days ago. He hasn’t been seen since. Now they’ve discovered the bodies of two of the friends he was with.’
    ‘I’m so sorry . . .’
    ‘One of them had been shot.’
    He had come here dragging his own feelings of anger behind him, but now her fear swept those aside. He sat down on the sofa but still she stood, rigid, as though afraid that if she tried to move her legs would give way.
    ‘On the day it happened I got a strange call from Ruari – or at least from his phone. Just noise, really, and muffled voices. I thought he’d pressed the speed dial by mistake and I erased it but . . . Now I think it was made from the helicopter. And today I got another message.’ She walked stiffly towards a side table on which stood a laptop. ‘On this. A voice message. Over the Internet. On Skype.’
    ‘You didn’t record it, I suppose.’
    She shook her head. ‘But I remember almost every word. “We have your son, bitch!” it began. Then it said if we called in the police or anyone like that, we’d never see him again.’ The memory was beginning to twist inside her. ‘It said we should do nothing except wait for their next message.’ The tears were flowing now.
    ‘Did it give you any clues? Who they were, or where they were?’
    She tried to bite back her anguish. ‘The voice was white South African, that would be my guess, but apart from that – nothing. Except at the end of the call . . .’ She was struggling. ‘At the end there was just one long scream of pain!’ Now Terri was sobbing her heart out, her manicured fingers ripping at the buttons on her sleeve, her shoulders heaving, her head hanging in despair. Harry wanted to put his arms around her, to comfort her, but he couldn’t. She seemed as though she would break in two, fall in pieces to the ground, but she was battling with her fear and eventually she let forth one final lung-bursting sob before scrabbling for a handkerchief and wiping her eyes, which once more fell on him.
    ‘Forgive me, but . . .’ He was hesitant, reaching for the appropriate words. ‘Why are you telling me this? What about your husband?’
    ‘J.J.’s away, out of contact, I don’t know precisely