Page 169 - James Caan - The Real Deal

15 · Kidnap

birth. I was pretty shocked at how differently things worked in
Pakistan – it was all about personal contacts rather than institu-
tions, and you turned to friends ahead of the authorities – and on
reflection I realised that I felt far more British than Pakistani.
It was an incredibly confusing few days. Aside from the cultural
divisions and the anxiety about what was happening to my father,
in the back of my mind there was the thought that they were
actually after me. And not having seen my parents for so long, and
then only seeing them for a matter of hours, was emotionally hard
to deal with. From one minute to the next we hadn’t known what
might happen. The kidnappers might have killed him, or the bank
might have phoned and I would have had to collect the money.
Would I have needed protection? There were so many different
scenarios playing out in my head simultaneously that I would have
been completely disorientated, even without those strange couple
of hours with my parents and my brothers and sisters. On the
plane on the way home I had to keep asking myself if these things
had really happened. When I went back to the office the next day
and carried on as normal, it felt increasingly surreal.
For several weeks my anxiety levels were higher than normal as
we waited to see if the kidnappers would come back for my father.
After six or seven weeks, he got fed up with hiding in a friend’s
house. It was no way to live his life, and so the family moved back
to Karachi and got on with their lives.
Despite my relief, I could not relax. At this stage in my life I was
working so hard – I would be in the car at six in the morning and
not leave the office until eight at night – and I wasn’t spending
nearly enough time with the girls. There were days when the only
chance Aisha and I would get to talk would be over the phone
between meetings. Even when I got home, the phone would ring
or there would be accounts to look at or the trade press to read.
As I don’t drink – except the odd glass of champagne at
celebrations – I was finding it increasingly hard to unwind. I smoke

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