The second photo was equally sharp, and showed me sitting in a client’s office earlier that morning. I seemed to be leaning back in the chair, one hand scratching the back of my head. I recognised my shirt, the one I was still wearing. The buttoned cuff had ridden up a little as I stretched, showing my watch. This one had a target superimposed onto my back.

The fact that the background of both photographs was out of focus suggested to me that the depth of field of the camera lens was narrow, which suggested a long telephoto lens had been used to take the snaps. Clearly I had no recollection of being photographed, but these days even small compact cameras had zoom lenses capable of magnifying sixteen times without having to resort to digital zooming. The photographer could have been some distance away when he took the pictures. If a camera could shoot me so easily without my being aware of it, I wondered what else could, and I didn’t like the answer to that question.

While I was examining the photos a seat became free by the window, and I sat down. I won’t be sitting by any windows after Friday noon, I thought. I looked at my BlackBerry again and tried to work out what information I could glean from these brief messages.

Firstly, I thought, it could still be a joke, but that seemed less likely now. Secondly, someone had clearly been following me and clearly they could have attacked me at any time during the morning. Like most of us going about our daily lives, I was vulnerable whilst I was unaware of any threat. Thirdly, the relatively paltry sum of money that had been requested in exchange for my life was almost impossible for me to raise, but not quite, although how I could gather those funds in just forty eight hours was a concern. Finally, Bob was not worried about me calling the police; either that, or he was bluffing. Unfortunately, I had to assume that he was right. I could easily waste much of the next forty eight hours in police stations begging to be taken seriously if I’m not careful, I thought.

So what to do? Pay up or wait and see?

I am, by nature and training, a decisive man and so I quickly concluded that if I began the process of raising the money straight away, then at least I was keeping all options open. I didn’t have to actually hand it over if I didn’t want to, after all.

Unthinking, I wiped the condensation from the inside of the glass window with the side of my balled right hand and saw that the rain had stopped. Bright rays of August sunshine were cutting through the clouds, seemingly spotlighting individual Londoners going about their business. Now that the sun was beating down again, the smiles quickly returned to the faces of the pedestrians and they looked as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

I did. I had forty eight hours to live unless I could raise a quarter of a million pounds.

Chapter 2

Dyson Brecht Loss Adjusters, Ropemaker Street,

London. Wednesday, 12noon.

I heard a clock chiming the noon hour as I sat outside Toby Baker’s glass walled office. The church clock tower bell had been discordant and tuneless for as long as I could remember, but no-one ever seemed to do anything about it. The old doorman we’d had when I started this job years ago told me that it had never been the same since it had been damaged during the Blitz, so it was the Germans’ fault. Ironic, since my company was founded by a German and an American.

My eyes were fixed on Toby’s office, where the morning meeting was breaking up and individuals were gathering their papers and belongings. There was a round of ritual handshaking and fake smiling, with everyone putting aside the bitter arguments of the morning for the sake of maintaining the prospect of an amicable settlement. Toby ushered out his guests and looked at me with a puzzled expression. To be fair, I rarely sought him out in person. We had even conducted my annual review over the phone whilst we were both just a mile apart in Dubai.

As the last of his guests walked towards the bank of elevators I stepped into Toby’s office and closed the door behind me. Toby sat at his desk, leaned back in his mega expensive stressless office chair, and visibly relaxed. He placed his hands, fingers interlocked, on his ample stomach.

Before I had a chance to speak, Toby screwed up his face as if he was in pain and said, “You’re here to hand in your notice, aren’t you?”

“No,” I replied instantly. “It’s more important than that.”

The expression on Toby’s face slackened and a possible smile crossed his lips on its way to becoming a smirk. “Nothing’s more important than that, Josh.”

I slid a sheet of letter sized paper across his desk. There were four items printed on it: the text message, the email text and the two photographs. Toby lifted his Armani glasses off his nose and rested them on his head as he squinted to read the text without the help of his prescription lenses. After a moment he laid the paper flat on the desk. His expression seemed halfway between a smile and a frown.

“Surely this is a joke?” he said, clearly unconvinced. I did not reply in words, but simply shook my head.

“No. Maybe not, then,” he said as he took a second look at my printout.

Toby was by far the brightest man I knew, only a year older than me at thirty four years of age. Most people assumed he was actually older, as his dark hair was already showing signs of greyness at the temples. His expensive glasses framed deep brown eyes which always seemed to twinkle with a hint of mischief, but he could be deadly serious when necessary. He wasn’t particularly well qualified, but he was so well informed on every subject that he gave the impression of brilliance, tempered by laziness. Not one for unnecessary exercise, or any at all if it could be avoided, Toby was often described as ‘larger than life’, a polite way of saying that he was borderline chubby. He liked to research everything to death. If he met a quantum physicist in a bar he would study quantum physics for days on the internet, in libraries and in magazines until he could converse intelligently with his bar buddy, should they ever meet again.

It is this love of detailed research which has made him such a brilliant loss adjuster. Along with a photographic memory, his research enables him to know as much about an insured loss as the insured. By the time a paint manufacturer attends a settlement meeting for an insured loss relating to a fire at his factory, Toby will have found out what products were mixed to make the paint, their flammable qualities, the appropriate regulations for safe storage, the factory regulations relating to fire protection and safety, and the current market price for the paint produced.

Toby believes that knowledge is power, and he has been proved right so many times that most of the major insurers rely on him to ensure that they never over compensate their customers. Despite his hefty fees, the money he saves his clients every year swamps the sums he commands in payment for his services.

After another few seconds glancing at the printed sheet, he sat forward in his chair, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He looked me in the eye, his expression signalling to me that he had already come to a conclusion.

“Do you want my advice?” I nodded. “OK, this is what we do.”

I took notes on a yellow legal pad faintly lined in blue, each page serrated along its length so that it could be torn out and filed. By the time he had finished speaking I had a long list of ‘to do’ items. He spoke slowly, in his quiet and reassuring voice, and I jotted down what he said almost verbatim.

1) Your flat may be small but in Greenwich it still has to be worth £250k, and as you own it outright, you can raise a £200k loan on that, try Roddy at Chartered Equitable, he’ll get your application processed fast and at a preferential business to business interest rate.