SEVEN DAYS
Alex Lake

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

Copyright © Alex Lake 2019

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Cover photograph © Laura Kate Bradley / Trevillion Images

Alex Lake asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008272364

Ebook Edition © October 2019 ISBN: 9780008272388

Version: 2019-08-26

Dedication

To Norman: we miss you.

Rest in peace, old friend.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Saturday, 16 June 2018: Seven Days to Go

Twelve Years Earlier, 7 July 2006

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Sunday, 17 June 2018: Six Days to Go

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Twelve Years Earlier, 7 July 2006: Evening

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Twelve Years Earlier, 7 July 2006: Evening

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Monday, 18 June 2018: Five Days to Go

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Twelve Years Earlier, 9 July 2006

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Twelve Years Earlier, 9 July 2006

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Twelve Years Earlier, 9 July 2006: Evening

Chapter 1

Tuesday, 19 June 2018: Four Days to Go

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Twelve Years Earlier, 29 July 2006

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Twelve Years Earlier, 30 July 2006

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Twelve Years Earlier, 31 July 2006

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Wednesday, 20 June 2018: Three Days to Go

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Eleven Years Earlier: Sunday Morning, 1 July 2007

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Eleven Years Earlier: Sunday Morning, 1 July 2007: Maggie

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Thursday, 21 June 2018: Two Days to Go

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Eight Years Earlier: Friday, 18 June 2010

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Eight Years Earlier: Sunday, 27 June 2010

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Eight Years Earlier: Thursday, 1 July 2010

Chapter 1

Eight Years Earlier: Thursday, 1 July 2010

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Eight Years Earlier: Wednesday, 18 August 2010

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Friday, 22 June 2018: One Day to Go

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Four Years Earlier: July 2014: James

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Four Years Earlier: July 2014: DI Wynne

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Four Years Earlier: July 2014: Martin

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Four Years Earlier: July 2014: Maggie

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Four Years Earlier: July 2014: Sandra

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Four Years Earlier: July 2014: James

Chapter 1

Four Years Earlier: July 2014: Maggie

Chapter 1

Saturday, 23 June 2018: No Days to Go

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Saturday, 23 June 2018: James

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Martin

DI Wynne

Sandra

Maggie

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Martin

Maggie

James

Maggie

DI Wynne

Martin

Wynne

Martin

Wynne

Martin

Wynne

Martin

Wynne

Sandra

Wynne

Martin

James

Wynne

Saturday, 23 June 2018: Evening

Maggie

Wynne

PC Oliver Reid

Maggie

PC Oliver Reid

Maggie

Maggie

Maggie

Martin

Epilogue: Six months later

Read on for a sneak preview of Alex Lake’s new novel

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Alex Lake

About the Publisher

Saturday, 16 June 2018
Seven Days to Go

Suddenly it was so close.

Max’s birthday – his third birthday, the one that counted – was right below the date she had just crossed out.

S | Su | M | Tu | W | Th | F
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2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15
16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22
23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29
30 |  |  |  |  |  |

Which meant it was one week until the twenty-third of June.

Seven days away. That was all. Seven more days until it happened. She had been trying to ignore it, but seeing it there, the very next Saturday, made that impossible.

It was a wonder she had the calendar at all. She had started keeping it on the fifth day after she had been locked in this basement. If she hadn’t, there was no doubt she would have completely lost track of how long she’d been held captive. There had been times – terrible, terrible times – when she had been unable to record the passing days and weeks as accurately as she would have liked. But as it was, she knew more or less how much time had passed, how many years – eleven, soon to be twelve – since she had seen her parents and brother and older cousin, Anne, who she had been on the way to meet when she made the mistake of speaking to the man in the car that slowed to a stop next to her.

When she’d started the calendar, she’d had no idea that more than a decade later she would still be using it. She’d expected – foolishly, as it turned out – to be back with her family and friends well before this much time had gone by, although even after five days she was starting to understand that this might be something that lasted longer than she could have ever anticipated. She was glad she had the calendar though, glad she had asked for some paper and a pencil – the pencil was a short, yellow one from Ikea, she recalled – and sketched out a calendar in tiny figures on one side. It was her only link to the outside world. Even though it was not totally accurate, on the days she thought were the birthdays and anniversaries of her friends and relatives, she imagined them having parties and opening presents, and in doing so, she felt, in a way, that she was with them.

Since Max was born, the calendar had assumed a new importance; she’d become obsessed with ensuring it was accurate. Her son – named after the boy in Where the Wild Things Are, because the storybook Max was able to escape his room through a magic door and travel to the island where the Wild Things lived, and freedom was something she longed for her little boy to experience – had been born on 23 June 2015. And ever since that day she’d had one dread eye on his third birthday.

On the day her first son, Seb, turned three, the door to the basement had opened and he – the man whose name she still did not know and whom she thought of only as ‘the man’ – had come in. Unsmiling, as usual, but with a nervousness which was new.

He pointed at her son. At his son.

Give him to me, he said.

Why? she replied.

Just give him to me.

No.

I want to show him the world. I’ll bring him back later.

She refused again.

It’s his birthday. I’ll get him ice cream. Take him to a park. Think of what you’re denying him.

She knew it was close to his birthday. At that point, the calendar was missing a few days here and there, but back then she hadn’t thought it mattered.

And it would be nice for him to have a treat. So she agreed.

It was the last time she saw her firstborn. The next time the man came to the room he was alone.

She asked for Seb hundreds – thousands, maybe – of times, but he just shook his head, refusing to say where her boy was. Once, he told her, Don’t worry, he’s safe, but she didn’t believe it. If a three-year-old boy had suddenly appeared in his life, people would have asked where the child came from, who the mother was. There was no way he wanted those questions, so she thought she knew what had happened.

The man had made the problem disappear.

He’d taken her little boy and killed him, then disposed of his body somewhere it would never be found.

Beside herself with grief, she’d lost weight – a lot of weight, enough that her skin grew loose and she could almost see the shape of the bones in her arms and legs – but it didn’t stop the man coming to the basement and gesturing to the bed in the corner with that curt little nod of his, then waiting for her to lie down and undress before he lay on top of her and did what he did while she closed her eyes and waited for it to be over and for him to be back upstairs in his house where she didn’t have to look at him.

And, of course, the thing she had feared most came to pass. Another child. She tried to stop it. Tried to starve the baby to death inside her, but all that happened was she grew thinner and thinner herself until the man figured out what was going on and forced her to eat. Why, she didn’t know. Why he wanted the baby to be born was a mystery to her, but then most of what he did was a mystery to her. How could you understand a man who locked a fifteen-year-old girl in a basement for years, then stole her son? Why even try?

And then the new baby was born. A boy again. Pink and beautiful and red-haired. She hadn’t wanted him, but now he was there she loved him uncontrollably. Leo, she called him. Leo the lion, with his mane of red hair.

He was different to Seb. Smaller. More watchful. Quicker. By the time he was two he could talk, whole sentences. At two and a half he could read the alphabet. She had taught him by writing out tiny letters on a scrap of paper.

At three he was gone. On his birthday, the man came. He pointed at Leo.

Give him to me, he said.

No, she replied. Not this time.

Yes, he said, in his heavy, slow voice. Yes.

This time she fought, but it was no use. It had never been any use, not since the first time she had tried and he had taught her – in the most awful, awful way – never to try again. But she had. She had held Leo to her chest, but the man hit her and forced her on to her back and held his forearm against her throat then prised her arms apart until he had Leo and she was unconscious. The last thing she saw before she passed out was her beautiful boy wriggling from his arms and running away.

But there was only one place for Leo to go, and he went there.

Through the open door and up the stairs, to the place the man lived.

The next time she saw him she didn’t bother asking where Leo was. There was no point.

And then, as though the universe was punishing her, the cycle repeated itself. The door opening. The nod at the bed. The disgusting act.

Then the missed period and the cramps and the feeling of being bloated and uncomfortable. And nine months later, another baby.

Another boy.

Max, after the boy in Where the Wild Things Are.

Max, the curly-haired, ever-smiling, bright-eyed button of joy who she loved with an intensity that surpassed anything she had felt before, even with Seb and Leo, if only because since the day he had arrived she had known she would only have three years with him, three short years into which she had to cram a lifetime of love.

Max, who would turn three on Saturday, 23 June.

She looked at him, sleeping on the mattress they shared, spread-eagled on his back, mouth slightly open and she shook her head.

It couldn’t happen again. It couldn’t.

But it would. She was powerless. The man would come and open the door and take Max from her, whatever she did. And even if she stopped him somehow, it would only be a temporary respite. He would put sleeping pills in her food or knock her unconscious and take her little boy.

She couldn’t fight him every day of Max’s life.

And so she had seven days left. Seven days with her son.

Seven days until he was ripped from her arms.

Or seven days to find a way to save him.

Twelve Years Earlier, 7 July 2006
1

Maggie pulled on the baby-blue Doc Martens her boyfriend, Kevin, had bought her for her fifteenth birthday. She’d had mixed emotions when she unwrapped the present a week before; she really, really wanted the boots, but they were expensive, and although Kevin was sweet and she was very fond of him, she already knew he wasn’t the one – she couldn’t see him as the first person she’d have sex with. What they had wasn’t special enough, at least not to her, and she’d decided she was going to break up with him. Knowing that, accepting the boots didn’t seem fair. She’d seen it on her mum’s face, too. When Maggie pulled the boots from the box, her mum had glanced at her, her forehead creased in a frown.

For a moment, Maggie had considered refusing, but that would have been even more awkward. She’d have had to explain why, and she wasn’t quite ready for that, wasn’t quite ready to break his heart, not on her birthday.

Besides, they really were amazing boots.

She stood up and looked in the hallway mirror. She pulled her hair – recently dyed jet black from her natural copper-tinged brown – into a ponytail, considered it, then let it fall loose around her neck. She could never make up her mind what was better. It was long and thick, and wearing it down showed it off. It meant more care though, or at least a more expensive haircut, and she didn’t feel like asking her parents for money. Though they both worked, things were tight – they didn’t talk about it in front of her and James, her little brother, but she picked up on comments they made about being careful buying groceries and saw how her dad only put in ten pounds’ worth of petrol at a time.

Anyway, that didn’t matter at the moment. She was going to see Anne, her nineteen-year-old cousin, to get some advice on what to do about Kevin. She grabbed her backpack and walked down the hall.

‘Maggie!’

It was her dad. She paused at the front door. He was probably going to tell her to tidy her room or ask if she’d done her homework. If she left immediately, all he would hear was the door closing. When she got home she could say she hadn’t heard him.

She gripped the handle. Behind her, the door to the living room opened.

‘Maggie.’ Her dad was standing there, a piece of paper in his hand. ‘Before you go, we need to talk.’

She rolled her eyes. She knew it was immature, and she hated it – she wasn’t a little girl any more, she had grown-up decisions to make about things like Kevin, and when it was right to have sex with someone, which was one of the things she was going to ask Anne about – but somehow her parents always brought out her childish side. She hated it, but she simply couldn’t help it.

Ironically, on the way home from Gran’s the other day, her mum had admitted, You know, Mags, I’m forty-one years old, but I still feel like a naughty teenager when I’m talking to your gran.

So maybe it would always be this way.

‘What is it, Dad? I’m late.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘You’re late? I’ve never known you to worry about that before, but I’m glad you’ve finally seen the value in punctuality. Let’s hope this new approach lasts until Monday morning when it’s time to leave for school.’

‘Very funny, Dad.’ It actually was quite funny. Her friends all thought her dad was hilarious, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. ‘You do know that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, don’t you?’

‘I’ve heard that,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry to cause you distress by violating your new-found sense of punctuality by making you even later, but we need to discuss this.’ He shook the piece of paper. ‘It’s the phone bill, in case you were wondering.’

The phone bill. Of all things, that was what he wanted to talk about?

‘Do we have to do it now, Dad? Can’t it wait? It’s only a phone bill.’

‘Only a phone bill for one hundred and’ – he peered at the total – ‘seventy-six pounds, and nineteen pence.’

‘So?’ Maggie said. ‘I didn’t make all the calls.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not all of them. But the majority.’

‘There’s no way I made the majority of calls,’ Maggie replied. ‘James is always on the phone.’

‘That’s probably how it appears to you. In the few gaps you leave each evening, he manages to squeeze in and grab a few minutes before you wrestle the phone back from him. But I think it’s fair to say you’re the primary phone user in this house.’

There was a long pause, which Maggie filled by shaking her head, the slowness of the shake indicating the depth of her disbelief.

‘That is so unfair,’ she said.

‘Really?’ Her dad smiled. It was a smile she hated, smug and pleased with himself. ‘One of the things you should know about phone bills is that they are itemized,’ he said. ‘Every call. Number and duration.’ He tapped the phone bill. ‘Take this number, called on the seventh of April at seven minutes past five for sixty-one minutes. And again that same evening, at eight twenty-two, this time for ninety-six minutes. It appears the following day, then the day after that, then there’s a break for a day, and then it appears again – every evening until the twenty-fourth of April.’ He read out the number. ‘Do you recognize it?’

‘You know I do,’ Maggie said. It was Chrissie, one of her best friends. Chrissie had moved to Nottingham – which made it a long-distance call from Stockton Heath – and was having trouble settling in. ‘Chrissie needs me, Dad.’

‘Then perhaps she should call you.’

‘Her parents won’t let her! They put a pin code on the phone.’

‘Look,’ her dad said, ‘I understand you want—’

‘Need,’ Maggie said.

‘Need to talk to your friends. But it costs a lot of money. And apart from anything else, what if someone needs to call us? The phone’s always engaged.’

‘It wouldn’t be if you bought me a mobile,’ Maggie said. ‘Then you wouldn’t have to worry about your precious phone being tied up.’

‘I’m not sure that would save any money,’ he replied. ‘Mobiles are more expensive than land lines. And we talked about it. You can get a phone when you’re sixteen.’

‘My friends all have mobile phones!’ she said. ‘It’s not fair!’

‘When you’re sixteen,’ her dad said. ‘Or when you can pay for it yourself.’

‘Fine,’ Maggie said. This was so annoying. ‘Whatever.’

‘Maggie,’ her dad said. ‘I know it’s important to you to talk to your friends, and I know this is your house too, but you have to be prepared to compromise. I think maybe one and a half hours a night should be the maximum you spend on the phone. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable.’

‘Sure. Can we talk about it later, Dad? I need to leave.’

‘You want a lift?’

Maggie considered it for a second, then shook her head. ‘I can walk. I’m only going to Anne’s.’

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Are you back for dinner?’

‘Yeah. See you then.’

‘See you too, Fruitcake. Love you.’

Fruitcake. He’d called her that since she was a little girl. She kind of hated it, but she also knew that one day there’d be a last time he called her Fruitcake.

And she wasn’t sure she was ready for that day just yet.

2

Maggie’s Cousin Anne lived on the other side of the village. It was a short walk – no more than half a mile – which she had made many times. The road outside her house led to the village centre, but she turned off it after about a hundred yards and walked along a quiet residential street towards a small park. It was a short cut, of sorts, but the main reason she wanted to go through the park was so she could smoke a cigarette. A stream bordered one edge of the park; it was slow moving and full of litter and nobody – no adults, at least – ever bothered with it. It was the perfect place to hide while you smoked.

It was Kevin who had got her started; the first few times she’d coughed and spluttered and wondered how anyone got addicted to something so disgusting, but after a while she’d grown to quite enjoy it. There was something about the ritual that appealed to her – the flare of the match, the crackle of the paper when it lit, the rush of the nicotine – although what she really enjoyed was the feeling that she was doing something her parents didn’t know about. Something grown-up.

She felt in her bag for the cigarettes and matches and smiled as her fingers closed around them. She took one out and held it in her hand, unlit. She’d share one with Anne later. Anne smoked, too; she didn’t know yet that her younger cousin had taken it up. Maggie was looking forward to telling her.

She was also looking forward to what Anne had to say about Kevin. He was going to be devastated, Maggie already knew that. They’d been together nearly six months, and, a few weeks back he’d said how it seemed like a month or two, max.

Maybe that’s what it’ll be like for us, he said. The years will fly by.

Years? It was then that Maggie realized they were not in the same place when it came to their relationship. For her, it had been a bit of fun that had lasted six months because Kevin made it work. For him, it was something a lot more significant.

Have you ever thought about taking … she said, and hesitated, about like, maybe taking a break?

They were lying on her couch and he tensed.

What do you mean? Do you want to take a break?

No, she said. I was wondering if you want to. If you’ve had enough of me. I don’t want to. Of course not.

He relaxed, a little.

No, he said. I’ve never thought about that. The opposite, in fact. You know I love you, Maggie.

He had started telling her all the time that he loved her. She found it very irritating. She felt she had to reply in kind.

I know, she said. I know you do.

Do you love me?

You don’t need to ask, Maggie said. All of a sudden she didn’t want to say it. Before, it had felt like an imposition; now it felt like a lie.

Do you? he said. Do you love me, Mags?

He’d also started calling her Mags. That was what her dad called her, when he wasn’t calling her Fruitcake. It wasn’t for Kevin.

Maybe for someone else, later, but not for Kevin.

Mags? he said. What’s wrong?

She pushed him away and stood up. Nothing. I’m getting my period. I’m going to get some water.

That had been his reaction to a vague question about taking a break. She dreaded to think what it would be when she told him she wanted to break up. Anne would have some advice.

The realization that a car had pulled up beside her broke her reverie. She started, and dropped her cigarette. She crushed it under her foot, in case it was someone who knew her parents, although if it was, it was probably too late. They’d have seen it in her hand as they stopped next to her.

The car was dark blue and nondescript. A Ford or something. Maybe a Volkswagen. Nothing too fancy, either way. She didn’t recognize it, thankfully. She glanced inside. There was a man behind the wheel, a road atlas in his hands. He was reaching for some glasses and peering at the page. He turned to look at her and smiled. He was about fifty and reminded her of a geography teacher.

No one she knew. She took her foot off the cigarette. No need to worry about that now.

The man looked at the panel by the gearstick and selected a button, his gestures very deliberate, as though new to the technology and needing to think about what he was doing. The passenger-side window rolled down.

‘Sorry,’ he said. He had a quiet, soft voice and a worried expression. She felt a little sorry for him. ‘I’m a bit lost, I’m afraid. Do you know where Ackers Lane is? Is it near here?’

It was on the other side of the park, but to get there by car you had to go through the village.

‘You’ll have to turn around,’ Maggie said. ‘When you get to the main road, turn right, and then right again at the traffic lights. I think it’s second – or maybe third – left after that. Ackers Lane is about half a mile down there.’

‘What’s the name of the road I turn into?’ he said.

‘I’m not sure,’ Maggie replied.

‘And you said it’s second left?’

‘Maybe third.’

‘OK,’ the man said. ‘Thank you.’ He paused. ‘Sorry to bother you. It’s a friend of my mother’s. She’s very frail and she had a fall. I need to get to her as soon as I can.’

‘That’s fine,’ Maggie said. ‘No problem. And good luck.’

The man shook his head. ‘Dash it,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry. I can’t quite remember what you said. Was it left on the main road?’

‘Right,’ Maggie said. ‘Then right again at the lights.’

‘I thought it was second left? Or third?’

‘That’s after you go right at the lights.’ It was obvious from the man’s blank expression that he wasn’t following her. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘It’s easy. Let’s start again.’

He held up the road atlas. ‘Would you mind showing me on the map?’

‘Of course,’ Maggie said. ‘Pass it over.’

The man unbuckled and twisted in his chair so he could pass the atlas over the passenger seat. She noticed that he held it in his right hand, which was weird, since his left hand was closer to her.

His left hand which, with a sudden, unexpected speed, snaked out and grabbed her wrist and yanked her towards the window.

Then he dropped the atlas, and she saw the syringe in his hand, and felt the prick of the needle in her arm. She just had time to read the front page of the atlas and think it was odd that he had a map of Cornwall when he was in Stockton Heath, and then everything went dark.

3

Her first thought was that she had a hangover. She recognized the sensation – throbbing temples, dry mouth, disorientation – from the time that she and Chrissie had drunk a bottle of cheap white cider in the park, and then, somehow, made their way to Chrissie’s house and passed out in her bedroom. Maggie had woken when it was still dark out and thought What happened? before the memories of the cider and the park and the two boys that had bought it for them came slowly back.

This was different, though. This time the memories that surfaced were not of cider and boys and the park.

They were of a car, and a man asking for directions and a syringe.

Holy shit.

Her eyes flew open.

She was looking at a low ceiling, covered in some kind of dark carpet tile.

A ceiling she did not recognize.

The dryness in her mouth intensified and her stomach tightened. Her pulse sped up and pounded in her neck. She sat up too quickly and felt suddenly dizzy; for a moment she thought she was going to pass out, but then her head cleared and she saw where she was.

She was on a narrow, thin mattress in a room lit by a dim lamp on a table by the bed. The room was small; the ends of the mattress were against the walls. There was an area about twice the size of the mattress covered in a brown carpet. In one corner were two blue, plastic buckets, a pink bowl with a jug inside it, and a tall wooden, barrel.

What the fuck were they there for? Maggie stared at them, aware that, in the back of her mind, she knew exactly what they were. She just didn’t want to face it.

They were the toilet, sink and bath.

She looked away. In the other corner was a door. Beside it was a box that looked like it contained a towel and possibly some clothes.

And that was it. Other than that, the room was empty.

It was also windowless, which explained the dank, musty smell.

Maggie folded her arms protectively. She was still clothed, still wearing the grey jeans and Gap hoodie she’d left the house in.

But there was something missing. She glanced at her feet. Her blue Doc Martens had been removed.

Which meant someone – the man – had touched her while she was unconscious.

Her stomach heaved and she tasted bile in her mouth. She fought the urge to be sick, but she retched again and realized she was not going to be able to stop it. She staggered to the pink bowl and leaned over it and threw up, over and over, until her stomach was empty.

Then she sat back on the mattress. The room was silent and empty, unchanged apart from the sour smell of vomit that cut through the stale air.

‘Hello?’ she said. ‘Hello?’

The words seemed to vanish, swallowed up by the walls. There were no echoes, no reverberations, no indications that the sound of her voice had left the room.

She looked at the door and got to her feet. There was some explanation for this. Maybe she’d fallen ill, or been hit by a car and the man who looked like her geography teacher had brought her here to keep her safe, unaware of her name or address. He was probably upstairs – she was sure the room was underground – waiting for her to wake up so he could take her home.

If that was the case – and it had to be, it simply had to be, because the alternative was too awful to contemplate, which was why she was ignoring it and pretending that there was an innocent explanation here – if that was the case then the door would be unlocked and would open when she tried it and she would walk up the stairs and in an hour or so she’d be at home with her mum and dad, sitting with them on the sofa and never, never leaving them again.

She took the few steps – three, she counted – to the door and reached out. The silver metal handle was cold.

And it did not move. She tried it a few times, each time with more and more force, but it was pointless.

She was in a locked room.

The thought did not quite register.

She was in a locked room.

She was – the word forced itself into her consciousness for the first time – a prisoner.

She reached in her pocket for her cigarettes. She had a sudden need for the rush of nicotine, of something familiar.

They were gone.

She sat heavily on the mattress. Despite the carpet, the floor was cold on her feet and she looked for her boots, but they were gone. Clearly the man did not think she would have much use for them here.

Her boots had been taken off and the door was locked and there was a bucket for a toilet and a bowl for a sink and a barrel for a bath, which meant that the man who looked like her geography teacher – the man who had, she now understood, kidnapped her – intended to keep her here for a very long time.

Forever, she thought. He wants me here forever. He can’t let me go because then I’d tell people what he did and he’d be in trouble. So he has to keep me here.

She pulled her knees up and hugged them to her chest. She looked around the room, taking in the brown carpet that covered the floor and ran up the walls and over the ceiling, the locked door and the lumpy mattress lit by the weak yellow light pooling out from the one lamp by the bed.

And she understood something else.

He had prepared the room for this purpose. He had a plan.

And she was now part of it.

Sunday, 17 June 2018
Six Days to Go
1

She crossed off another day.

S | Su | M | Tu | W | Th | F
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2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15
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Six days to go until his birthday. She watched him stack his Duplo blocks into a tower, then knock it down, giggle, and build it again. God, his world was so small.

A low ceiling, four carpeted walls – she hated that carpet, hated its dust and smell and drab brown colour, and she had vowed that when she was out of here she was going to have a house with clean, wooden floors in every room – the sink-bowl and toilet-bucket and barrel-bath and a door he had never been through.

That was it. That was Max’s world. He didn’t even understand what the door was for. As far as he knew, it was for the man to come in and out of. He had no idea he could use it, had no experience of all the things that were out there.

No experience of fields and ponds and schools and roads and houses and shops. All he had was what she had told him. She’d asked for books and photos but the man had told her there was no point. He was too young to understand.

And he’ll be gone when he’s three.

The man hadn’t said that, but he didn’t need to. It was implicit in his refusal. He rarely gave her anything. It was only after weeks of begging when Seb was born that he’d brought a box of Lego, the large ones for little kids. Duplo, they were called. There weren’t many, but Max – as Seb had – loved them. He played with them for hours, arranging them into towers and arches and walls. Once he had made a rectangle filled with odd-shaped objects and Maggie had asked him what it was.

Our house, he replied. Look. That’s the bath. That’s you and me. That’s the bed.

She had to bite back the tears. Other kids were building space rockets or gardens or trains. Max was building the only thing he knew.

This shitty prison.

And so she took him places in his imagination, described the blue of the sea by pointing to his blue socks, but told him the sea was a different blue, a brilliant blue, a beautiful shining blue, words that he didn’t understand but which reminded her of the world out there, of what she too was missing. She explained the coolness of the breeze by moistening his forehead and blowing on it, and the warmth of the sun by rubbing her hands until they were hot and placing them on his chest. All of it was a pale imitation of the real thing, but it was all she had.

She didn’t stop there; she told stories of magical palaces and boats and rivers where Max and she had wild adventures. Along the way they met heroic people with the names Grandpa Martin and Grandma Sandra and Uncle James and Aunty Anne and Chrissie and Fern. She told him how Chrissie was brave and loyal but could be grumpy and Fern was funny and clever but left things wherever she went. She told him how Uncle James was kind of grumpy but sweet and well-meaning, and how Aunty Anne was wise and Grandpa and Grandma were kind and loving, and how they loved him in particular. The stories ended with huge parties where there was every kind of food and all the toys a boy could wish for. She wondered what Max thought chocolate and jelly beans and burgers and milkshakes tasted like. She wondered whether he would ever find out.

She sat on the mattress and watched him play with the Duplo. Behind him, by the door, were two plates. Max had left half of the mashed potato and baked beans the man had brought; Maggie had barely touched hers.

‘OK, Max,’ she said. ‘Time for our exercises.’

She was worried he didn’t get enough activity – of course he didn’t, living in a cell – so for the last year or so she had been doing exercises with him. They began with jogging on the spot – he found that amusing – and then they dropped to the floor and did press-ups and sit-ups. Max’s press-ups mainly consisted of him raising his bottom in the air and then collapsing to the floor, but it was something. Maggie had found that, as the months went by, she could do more and more of them; now it was no trouble to do fifty at a stretch. She also did tricep dips and planks; she could hold the plank for over four minutes.

Maggie took off her T-shirt and shorts – it was always uncomfortably hot in the room, the air still and cloying; the only time there was any fresh air was when the man came and cooler air gusted in through the open door – and knelt on the floor. She dropped into the press-up position and did twenty press-ups, then held herself on her elbows.

‘OK, Max,’ she said. ‘Come and join me.’

Max toddled over. He was in a pair of dirty underpants – she tried to keep them clean, but it was hard with only soap and cold water – and lay on his belly next to her. On the back of the underpants was a Superman logo she’d drawn once, after telling him the story of how Superman had come from the planet Krypton to save people on Earth from their own folly. As she recounted the story she had been gripped by a powerful feeling that Superman would burst into the room and rescue them at any moment. He hadn’t, but for days she had been left with a vague sensation of hope.

Max levered himself up into the plank position. He was still some way off a four-minute plank. Once he had managed about twenty seconds, but this time it was closer to four seconds before his buttocks started to quiver with the effort. After a few more seconds his hips slowly lowered to the carpet.

‘Watch, Mummy,’ he said, looking up at her. ‘Watch what I can do.’

He started to wiggle his legs and arms and shake his head from side to side.

‘Wow,’ she said. She paused while she searched for an appropriate description of his gyrations. ‘You’re break-dancing!’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m being a snake. A snake doing yoga.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Of course.’ For a while they’d done some stretches she remembered from PE and she’d told him they were doing yoga, and it had obviously stuck with him.

He wiggled around for a while, a look of triumph on his face, then stood up and ran to Maggie. He jumped on her back and pressed his cheek to her skin.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Ride the horsey!’

Maggie twisted and bucked in an attempt to throw him off. It was a game they had played since he was very small. She had done it with Seb and Leo, but they had not enjoyed it nearly as much as Max. He shrieked with pleasure, laughing uncontrollably. It was a strange thing; despite the circumstances, he was a very happy child. Of course, he had no sense that he was missing out on anything, because he knew no different. In some ways it was the perfect set-up for a toddler: unfettered access to his mum and a guarantee of her undivided attention. Nonetheless, Seb and Leo had not been as happy as Max was. Seb was quiet, and prone to outbursts of crying. He’d been like that ever since he was born, sleeping fitfully and whimpering in his crib during the day. Leo was more like Max, but had a wild temper. From time to time, and without apparent reason, he would have screaming fits during which he was totally unreachable. He would hit her, and, if she tried to hold him, claw at her cheeks.

She had put it down to living in a tiny room, but then Max came along, and she wondered whether it was simply the way Seb and Leo were. Nature, not nurture. After all, if it was all down to circumstances, they should all have been the same – this was the perfect way to test. In normal life there were other things that could influence a child’s development, but not here. This was like a cruel experiment designed to examine how three children in the exact same environment turned out differently.

And Max, unlike the brothers he would never meet, was as happy as they came. Perhaps Seb and Leo got it from their dad – she hated even thinking of him as their father, but it was true, at least biologically – and Max took after someone else. He certainly had a look of her brother, the same fair hair and innocent, questioning blue eyes, the same goofy smile and easy laugh.

That was one of the things she regretted most, when she looked at her third son: that he would never meet his uncle, and that her brother, who had been a constant, daily irritation through her unfairly truncated teenage years, would never get to be the mentor to his nephew that he would, in her imagination, have become.

James would have loved him. He would have loved all three of her sons, with the same fierce, painful love that she did.

But Max was the only one she had left. He was the only one James would ever be able to love, and all she wanted in the entire universe was to save him so he could meet his uncle and have the life he deserved.

And she was going to.

Somehow.

2

When she had successfully bucked him off her back enough times to satisfy him, Maggie sat cross-legged on the floor. Max was on her lap, his legs around her waist. She had her hands on his hips; he was holding her forearms, running his fingers over the soft, fair hairs that grew there. They were new sometime in the last ten years; she didn’t know when they had started to grow, but she had not had them when she was fifteen.

A lot else had changed, too. Some of it – the hair on her forearms, the ache in her knees – were the result of time passing. Other stuff – the sallow skin, persistent cough, acne on her forehead – were from the lack of light and movement and good food. Others still – the heavier breasts, wider hips – were from the pregnancies.

It was one of the strangest features of her imprisonment. Around her, nothing had changed. Her life was frozen. She had not finished school – not even got her GCSEs – not gone to university, not got a job and a house and a car and a husband. All those things were impossibly distant for her, the achievements and waypoints of the life she had been denied.

And yet she was getting older. She had grown up, become a woman, both mentally and physically. Her life was moving along, slipping away. Ten years from now her metabolism would be slowing down; ten years later she’d be going through menopause.

And the man was getting older, too. He was – what, fifty-five? – when he took her, so he was in his late sixties now. He seemed healthy enough, but in another decade or two? He could become ill, or slip and fall, and then what? By the time they got to her and Max they might have starved.

If Max was still here then. It might be another two-year-old, unknowingly awaiting removal as soon as his third birthday arrived.

Max leaned forward, resting his face against her chest. He had always loved the feel of bare skin; often in the morning he would lie awake on top of her, his torso pressed to hers. She wondered why it felt so good to him. Perhaps he was listening to the sounds of her body, sounds he remembered in some dim way from his time in her womb.

‘Mummy,’ he said. ‘Can I have a story?’

Maggie kissed his head. The soft curls of his hair brushed her cheek.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘About Superman? Since you’re wearing your Superman undies?’

He shook his head. His eyes were closing. ‘About the light beam,’ he said.

‘Ah,’ Maggie replied. ‘The beam of light. Our magical beam of light. Our beautiful beam of light. Is that the story you want?’

Max nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Then you can have it.’ She paused, wondering where to start. A few months back she had started telling him a story about a beam of light that had a special property: you could ride on it and it could take you, in an instant, to places far, far away. They had ridden it to visit kangaroos in the Australian outback and beaches on the Australian coast, to experience snow-capped mountains and winter storms in Antarctica, to shop in frantic markets in Thailand where you could buy anything you wanted, to marvel at giant skyscrapers in America and to stare in awe at ancient civilizations hidden in deep jungles. They had gone to meet Harry Potter at Hogwarts, and to stroke Aslan in Narnia and to ride with the hobbits and elves of Middle Earth. Maggie saw no reason to exclude those places – some of the most magical of her childhood – from the adventures.

Today, she decided, they were going into the cosmos.

‘So,’ she said. ‘The beam of light—’

‘Mummy,’ he said, suddenly. ‘Am I a beautiful boy?’

‘Yes,’ Maggie replied. ‘Of course. That’s why I tell you so often.’

‘You’re a beautiful mummy,’ he said.

Maggie blinked, tears springing to her eyes. All parents probably marvelled at the things their children picked up, the words they came back from nursery or kindergarten or school with, the games they learned from their friends, the interests they developed out in the world. Max did not have any of those things, but even he made connections on his own. She had never asked him to call her beautiful, never explained why that would be a nice thing to do, but, somehow, his infant brain had understood that this person who loved him and who he loved used a word to describe him and so it would be nice to use it about them.

It showed that all her stories were working.

‘Close your eyes,’ she murmured, holding him against her and speaking into his hair. ‘Here comes the beam of light.’

He snuggled closer to her. ‘I don’t see it,’ he said.

‘That’s because it’s invisible,’ she replied. ‘But it’s here.’ She made a small jumping motion. ‘We’re on board,’ she said. ‘Hold on tight!’

She pursed her lips and made the noise of rushing air.

‘Oh my,’ she said. ‘We’re going very high. I can see the clouds already. Everything’s so small down below.’ She paused. ‘I think, Max – I think we’re going into space.’

His eyes blinked open. ‘Space?’ he said. ‘Is space scary?’

‘No,’ Maggie replied. ‘It’s beautiful. And so quiet. Look – there’s the Earth, below us. You can see the oceans and the continents. You remember Australia – there it is. And over there’ – she pointed to the door, watching as Max’s gaze followed her finger – ‘there’s the moon.’

It was incredible to see how easily he slipped into make-believe. In his mind, the room really was transformed into space, although exactly what he thought space was she had no idea. She remembered doing the same in her own childhood. She had gone through a spell when she was obsessed with some He-Man and She-Ra dolls her dad had bought for her. She had played with them for hours, inventing all kinds of scenarios and stories in which they were rescued from danger or won battles or made and broke friendships. She had really believed in them.

And for Max the moon and stars and Narnia were just as real as anything else. As far as he was concerned, Warrington Town Centre was as remote and exotic as the moon. They both existed only in his mind.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘There’s the man in the moon.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘He lives on the moon. You can see his face on a dark night.’

Max looked at her. ‘Can I see it tonight?’

Maggie tried to smile. ‘You have to be outside.’

‘Oh,’ Max said. ‘Outside.’

Outside was a place Max had heard of, but never been. For him it was a bit like space, or Hogwarts, or Narnia.

‘We can see him in our imagination, though,’ Maggie said. ‘There he is!’

‘What’s he doing?’ Max asked.

‘He’s digging up some moon rocks to eat,’ Maggie said.

‘He eats rocks?’

‘The moon is made of green cheese. That’s what he eats.’

‘Where’s his mummy?’ Max asked.

Maggie’s answer caught in her throat. He hadn’t asked where are his friends or where is his brother, but where’s his mummy. It was an unwelcome reminder of the smallness of his life.

‘She’s at his moon house,’ Maggie said. ‘She loves him very much.’

‘I love you very much,’ Max said, his eyes nearly closed. ‘And I want to go back to the moon.’

He was starting to fall asleep, his body relaxing. Maggie kissed him on the forehead as his breathing deepened.

‘I love you too,’ she whispered. ‘More than you will ever know.’

3

Maggie was nearly asleep when she heard him coming. She always knew he was on his way; there was a kind of scraping noise, like rock or steel grinding, which she assumed was a door of some kind hiding the entrance to the stairs that led to the room.

She had imagined it many times since the first time she had heard it. Was it a manhole cover in the corner of his garage? Or a heavy stone in his garden? Or a thick wooden cover hidden at the back of a wardrobe? She had no idea; all she knew was that, twenty or so seconds after she heard the noise it made when he moved it, the door to the room would open, and he would be there.

He came every morning, with breakfast, and every afternoon with dinner. It was how she knew the days were passing for her calendar.

And sometimes he came at night. It was when he brought things she needed. Fresh clothes. Cleaning supplies. A new toothbrush.

And when he wore the blue bathrobe. He never took it off. He just undid the belt and let it fall apart and then made her lie face down while he did what he did.

After he’d raped her he would often stare at her, silent and impassive. She had the impression he was waiting for her to say something, but she never had anything to say. All she wanted was for him to leave her alone.

Now, though, three or four days could go by without him showing up at night. She suspected that, as he grew older, he was losing interest in sex.

It was, other than Max, the only bright spot in her dismal world.

He was coming tonight, though.

The door handle turned and, with a click of the lock, it opened. He stepped inside, his bare shins sticking out from under the bathrobe, the ankles mottled and dark.

He locked the door, the key – as always – suspended on a chain around his wrist.

He was tall, certainly taller than her father, who was six foot one, which put him at what – six three? Six four? – and he wore thick-rimmed, old-fashioned glasses. The lenses were always perfectly polished, and she had a recurring image of him sitting in a floral-patterned armchair, news on the radio, his glasses in one hand and a cloth in the other. When he wasn’t in his bathrobe, he dressed in shapeless grey trousers and white or blue short-sleeved shirts, which, although clean, were faded and shabby, and carried a musty odour, as though they had been left in the wardrobe too long.

He looked at her, his gaze resting on her face, before moving down over her breasts and then legs. It was an appraising look, like the look a farmer might give a cow.

He nodded at the mattress where Max was sleeping. ‘Move the child.’

She picked up Max and laid him on the carpet next to the barrel-bath. She put a pillow under his head and stood up.

The man put his hands on her shoulders and turned her away from him, then pushed her face down on to the mattress. He tugged at her shorts and underwear, then waited as she pulled them down. She heard the noise of tearing as he opened a condom packet – he always used one when the boys were alive, only getting rid of them when she was childless, for reasons she had never understood – and then she felt his weight on her back.

She closed her eyes and thought of the light beam. Of the Man in the Moon. Of Australian beaches she had only seen on soap operas.

There had been a time, early on, when he had tried to kiss her before he raped her. He’d had a strange look on his face, a kind of nervous yearning, which had hardened into his usual scowl when she turned her head away.

He had not tried again.

It had confused her, at first, but afterwards she had understood what had happened. He wanted a relationship. He wanted her to enjoy it, as though they were girlfriend and boyfriend. Wife and husband.

The idea sickened her. The idea terrified her. It showed her just how delusional he was.

When it was over, he stood up. She turned to look at him. He gestured to the plates, and she scrambled to pick them up. She walked to him and put them in his outstretched hands. Up close his skin was sallow, his face badly shaved. His eyes were sunken and red-rimmed and he looked tired.

He looked ill.

Maggie had a sudden sense that things had changed, that she – and Max – were becoming a burden to him. Maybe he no longer wanted her there. Maybe he would welcome the chance to be rid of them. After all, he was getting older, and he must be wondering what to do with them.

Hope surged in her. There was – perhaps – a crack in the wall. She could offer him a way out. Make it easy for him.

This was it. This was her chance.

‘Can I ask you something?’ she said.

The man looked at her. After a few moments he nodded.

‘Why don’t—’ now she was saying it, it seemed absurd, the right words hard to find – ‘would you consider – is there any chance – would you – would you let us go?’

There was a long silence. The man blinked, almost as if he had not understood the question. Maggie carried on.

‘I wouldn’t say anything,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t tell a soul, I promise. You could drop us off hundreds of miles from here and I’d tell people I didn’t know where we’d been. I’d say I had no memory, and Max is too young to say anything. I don’t want to get you in trouble. I don’t hate you. I just want us to be free. It would work, it really would.’

He stared at her, motionless.

‘And then you’d be rid of us,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t have to be back and forth all the time, bringing food, worrying how we were. You could get on with your life, and we would never mention you. I mean, I don’t even know your name!’

He tilted his head, and for a moment she thought she saw a softening in his expression, and she was sure he was going to say yes, he was actually going to say yes.

And then he spoke.

‘No,’ he said, his voice low and toneless. ‘That’s impossible.’

‘It’s not! It’s easy! All you’d have to do is take us somewhere far away and leave us—’

‘That can’t happen.’

‘It can,’ Maggie said. ‘Of course it can, and you were thinking about it. I saw you. You were considering it. Please. Please. It’s a good idea. Please.’

He shook his head. ‘No. I can’t.’

‘Why? Why not?’

He pointed at Max. ‘Because of him.’

‘Max?’ Maggie said. ‘He’s still a baby! He has no idea who you are. How can it be because of him? He won’t say anything!’

‘He doesn’t need to. He’s my son.’

Maggie felt a growing confusion. Was he saying that he felt some paternal instinct towards Max? That keeping him here was some weird parenting method, and that he didn’t want to be apart from him?

‘You can see him whenever you want,’ she said. ‘I prom—’

‘That’s not it,’ he said. ‘He has my DNA.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Maggie said. ‘I don’t see how that’s a problem.’

‘They’ll look at his DNA and it will lead them to me. They have my DNA in their system. They take it for anything. So the answer is no.’

‘They can’t do that! It’s not possible!’

‘Maybe not. But it might be possible, and that’s enough. I can’t take that risk.’

‘Then I won’t let them have Max’s DNA. I’m his mum. I can stop them taking it.’

‘They will anyway.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s not going to happen.’

Maggie watched him walk across the room, his thick ankles clicking above his slippers. He took the key from the chain around his wrist and unlocked the door, and then he was gone.

Maggie sank on to the bed. Tears welled up; for a moment she’d believed that the end of this nightmare had come, but, like every other hope she’d had for the last decade it had come to nothing.

She looked at the calendar.

S | Su | M | Tu | W | Th | F
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2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15
16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22
23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29
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Sunday was over. Tomorrow was Monday. Five days until he took Max. She had to find a way to save her son. She had to.

But she had had to for a long time, and there was no reason to believe that in the next five days she would be any more successful.

Twelve Years Earlier, 7 July 2006: Evening
1

Martin Cooper held the phone to his ear and dialled his niece’s mobile. He read the time on the display: 18.17. Maggie had said she would be back for dinner but she had not showed up. He wasn’t too concerned – she was fifteen and could stay out past dinner if she wanted to, but he would have liked her to let him know, which was why he was calling Anne. It would be an opportunity to remind his teenage daughter that it would be polite to tell the people who were cooking a meal for you that you wouldn’t be coming.

Anne’s voice came on the line. ‘Hey.’

‘Anne. This is Uncle Martin.’

‘Oh,’ Anne said. ‘Hi. How are you?’

‘I’m good. Could I have a chat to Maggie?’

‘Maggie? She’s not here.’

Martin felt himself become more alert. ‘I thought she was with you?’

‘I haven’t seen her. She said she might come over, but she didn’t show up.’

Martin frowned. ‘That’s what she told me, too. Do you know where she went?’

‘Probably to see Kevin. Or maybe Fern.’ Anne paused, then said, with a laugh. ‘You should get her a mobile phone, Uncle Martin, then you could call her anytime you wanted.’

For a second, Martin thought this was staged. He had a mental image of Maggie telling Anne she’d stay out until her dad called and asked where she was, so Anne could make the point that it was time to get her a phone of her own. Then Maggie would come on the line and say, See, Dad? I need a mobile phone. She may be right; perhaps it was time. At fifteen, she was out on her own a lot more. He and Sandra had agreed that she could have one when she turned sixteen, but perhaps they would have to bring it forward. It was such an expense, though, and then James – still only fourteen – would demand one too.

She did not come on the line, though. Anne’s voice returned instead:

‘If I hear from her, I’ll tell her you’re looking for her,’ she said.

‘Thanks, Anne,’ Martin said. ‘Call me the minute you hear, would you?’

He hung up, then called Kevin’s home number. As the phone rang he felt a mounting sense of worry. He dismissed it; it was not that late, and there was almost certainly nothing wrong.

But still. You never knew.

Kevin’s dad, Brendan, answered.

‘Hi, Bren,’ Martin said. ‘I was wondering whether Maggie’s with you?’

‘Nope,’ Brendan replied. ‘Not seen her. Let me grab Kev. See if he knows.’

A few moments later, Kevin came on the line. ‘Hi, Mr Cooper,’ he said. ‘Are you looking for Mags?’

‘Yes. Have you seen her?’

‘She was out in town this morning with Fern. Me and Mark met her at McDonald’s. We were going to hang out tonight. She said she’d call when she was home and I could come and watch a film.’

‘She’s not back yet. You haven’t seen her since this morning?’

‘She said she was going to Anne’s this afternoon.’ Kevin hesitated. ‘At least, I think she did.’

‘She told me that, too,’ Martin replied. ‘But Anne hasn’t seen her.’

‘Maybe Anne wasn’t there when Mags showed up,’ Kevin said. ‘She would have gone to Fern’s.’

‘Thanks. I’ll try her there.’

Martin hung up, then selected Fern from speed-dial. She had a place on it, unlike Kevin, which he had heard Kevin ask Maggie about. He’d sounded a little desperate, and Maggie had sounded a little exasperated. He wasn’t sure how much longer their relationship would last. He’d be sorry to see Kevin go; he was solid and unthreatening, and Martin preferred that to some nineteen-year-old thug with a driving licence and a car that struggled through its MOT every year.

Fern answered. She had no more information than Kevin; she had seen Maggie that morning and thought she was planning to go to Anne’s. She ended the call by offering to call around and see if anyone knew anything.

Martin was about to say, No, don’t worry, I’m sure she’ll show up, but he caught himself.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That would be very helpful.’

2

Martin turned the gas hob on and put a pan of water on it. He stirred the Bolognese sauce. As the water began to bubble he heard the front door open.

Here she is, he thought, and walked out of the kitchen and into the hall.

It was Sandra and James. James was in his football kit, his bag over his shoulder. He slung it on to the stairs.

‘Don’t leave that blocking the stairs,’ Sandra said. ‘Go and put it away. And tidy your room while you’re up there.’ She looked at Martin and shook her head. ‘He’s a savage,’ she said.

Martin didn’t answer. She frowned. ‘Everything OK?’

Martin had a tense, almost nauseous, feeling in his stomach. Even though there was probably a simple explanation, he couldn’t avoid thinking the worst. He knew he was unnecessarily anxious, what his mum had called a ‘worry-wart’; whenever Sandra was out at night he couldn’t go to sleep until she was home, visions of car crashes or worse swimming in his head – but knowing he worried too much didn’t help. He was not the kind of father or husband or son who could relax and wait for news to come under the assumption it would be good. For him, no news was always bad news.

‘I thought you were Maggie,’ he said. ‘She’s not back yet. I called Anne and a couple of others. No one’s seen her.’

Sandra stared at him. For a moment there was worry in her eyes, but then she smiled. Unlike him, Sandra assumed that things were generally OK. ‘She’s a fifteen-year-old girl,’ she said. ‘She’s probably with a different friend. Or at the cinema.’

‘She should have told us.’

‘Yes, she should. But she didn’t. She’s not a little girl any more, Martin.’

‘I know.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I still worry though.’

‘I know you do. It’s one of your more attractive traits.’

‘It might be time to get her a phone,’ he said. ‘Then this won’t happen again.’

‘That’s probably why she’s stayed out,’ Sandra replied. ‘So she finally gets the white whale, the elusive mobile phone.’

‘Not fair!’ The call came from the top of the stairs. ‘If she gets a phone, I want one!’

‘You’re fourteen,’ Martin replied. ‘Not a chance. And wash your hands before dinner. It’s nearly ready.’

3

He didn’t eat dinner; he couldn’t. His stomach was tight and clenched and the spaghetti bolognese on his plate looked totally unappetizing.

James nodded at his plate. ‘Can I have that?’

Evidently his son was not feeling the same way. Martin passed it over and stood up. He looked at the clock over the sideboard. It was nearly seven p.m. Maggie had never stayed out this late without letting them know; she always told them when she was going to be out, and where she was going to be.

Not this time. Maybe it had slipped her mind, but he didn’t think so. She was somewhere, and someone knew where that was.

He went to the phone in the hall and called Kevin.

‘Have you seen her?’ he asked, when Kevin picked up.

‘No. I was waiting for her to call. About coming over.’

‘Any ideas where she might be?’

‘No,’ he said. He sounded as worried as Martin, although Martin suspected it was for different reasons. Kevin was no doubt worried she was with another boy.

He hung up and called Anne again. It sounded like she was in the pub.

‘Any sign of Maggie?’ he said.

‘No.’ Anne said something to someone and the noise of the pub died down. ‘Sorry about that – I’ve come outside,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t hear in there. Is everything OK, Uncle Martin?’

‘Maggie still hasn’t turned up.’

‘God,’ Anne said. ‘I hope she’s OK. I’ll ask around, shall I?’

‘Please. Call if you hear anything.’

He tried more of her friends. Everyone he could think of. Chrissie – in Nottingham, but still possibly in possession of some useful information – Jeffrey, Oscar, Fern, Meg, Jessie. They always knew what the rest of them were up to.

Except now. None of them knew anything.

He stood with the receiver in his hand. If she wasn’t with a friend, then where was she? Images of bodies in ditches or on hospital trolleys came unbidden. He forced them away. That wasn’t it. There was another explanation, a reason she had said she was going to Anne’s and then not shown up, a reason she had not told anyone where she was.

And he thought he might know what it was. Maybe Kevin’s fears were justified.

She had a new boyfriend. Probably older, probably unsuitable – which was why she hadn’t told him and Sandra. And she didn’t want Kevin to find out, which was why she hadn’t told her friends.

Apart from Chrissie. She told Chrissie everything.

He dialled Chrissie’s number again.

‘Sorry to call again, Chrissie,’ he said. ‘There’s one other thing I wanted to ask you.’

‘That’s OK, Mr Cooper. Whatever you want.’

‘I know you said you don’t know where Maggie is, but is there anything I should know? Maybe she told you something and asked you not to tell me and her mum, but if she did, now is a good time to say so.’

‘No,’ Chrissie said. ‘There’s nothing.’

‘Are you sure, Chrissie? Maybe a new boyfriend she wants to keep secret?’

‘I promise, Mr Cooper,’ Chrissie said. ‘I promise there’s nothing.’

She sounded – as far as he could tell – as though she was telling the truth.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘If anything comes to mind, or if you hear from her, call me. Anytime.’

4

She did not call back. No one did. By ten p.m., Sandra was as worried as him.

They sat at the kitchen table. Sandra had a mug of tea; Martin still couldn’t stomach anything. He was sure, now, that something was seriously wrong.

‘Where the fucking hell is she?’ he said. He rarely swore; even now the words felt out of place in his mouth. ‘I don’t understand what she’s playing at.’

‘Me neither,’ Sandra said. ‘But when she does get home she’s going to be in so much trouble she won’t know which way is up for a month. She can’t do this kind of thing.’

‘What if something’s happened to her?’ Martin said. ‘I can’t stop picturing—’

‘She’s fine,’ Sandra said. ‘Don’t think like that. I did this kind of thing when I was her age. It doesn’t make it any better, but this is what teenage girls do. She’ll be in the park, drinking and smoking. Or with another boy. She’s fifteen.’

‘I didn’t do this,’ Martin said. ‘I think there’s a problem, Sandy, I really do.’

‘You were a good boy,’ Sandra replied. ‘That’s why I married you. It looks like she has some of me in her. That’s all it is.’

‘Maybe,’ Martin said. ‘Maybe.’

5

At eleven, Martin walked out to his car. He couldn’t stay in the house, waiting, doing nothing, any longer. He had to go and find his little girl.

He decided to start at the park. He pulled up at the entrance and walked through the gates. From somewhere in the darkness he heard talking, and saw the red glow of cigarette tips. He headed towards them.

It was a group of four or five teenagers, boys and girls, all a year or two older than Maggie. They were smoking, bottles dangling from their hands.

‘Excuse me,’ he said.

They turned to look at him, their voices falling silent.

‘Yeah?’ one of the boys said. ‘What?’

‘I was wondering if you’d seen my daughter?’

‘Maybe,’ the boy replied. ‘Who is she?’

‘Maggie. Maggie Cooper.’

The name drew blank looks.

‘I haven’t,’ the boy said. ‘I don’t know her. Any of youse seen her?’

One of the girls stepped forward. She looked younger than the others. ‘I know Maggie,’ she said. Her voice was slurred. ‘We have English together.’

‘Have you seen her?’

The girl shook her head. ‘No. I mean, I seen her at school, but not out.’

‘Do you know where she might be? Are there other places kids hang out?’

The girl looked at her friends and shrugged. ‘In town, maybe. Some kids go to the pubs.’

‘She’s a bit young for that.’

One of the boys laughed. ‘Yeah, mate. They let anyone in, especially girls. They want them in.’

Martin didn’t ask for what. He didn’t need to.

‘Which pub is most likely?’ he said.

‘Could be any.’ The boy sniffed. ‘You’ll have to try them all.’

‘OK,’ Martin said. ‘Thanks.’

‘Is she OK?’ the girl asked.

For a moment, Martin didn’t reply. ‘I hope so,’ he said, eventually. ‘I hope so.’

In the car he checked his phone. There were no missed calls, no text messages from Sandra announcing Maggie’s’ return.

It was 23.34. Nearly midnight.

He’d had enough. The best case was she was outside a pub or waiting for a taxi or with some older boyfriend. The worst case was unthinkable.

It was time to call the police.

Twelve Years Earlier, 7 July 2006: Evening
1

Maggie sat on the bed, legs crossed, arms folded, her fingers stroking the smooth skin of her forearm. The light next to the bed was switched on; she had turned it off but there was no other source of light in the room and the darkness was absolute. There was sweat on her back and forehead; although it was not warm in the room she had, for what felt like an age, screamed and shouted and thrown herself against the door in a desperate – and useless – attempt to find a way out.

She was calmer now, but the panic was there, just under the surface.

Because she knew now there was no way out of the room.

There was no way out of the room.

There was no way out of the room.

And there was no one answering her cries. Was that his plan? To starve her to death in here? No – it couldn’t be. There had to be more to it than that.

The man who looked like a geography teacher – she didn’t know why she chose geography, it could have been one of many subjects, but that was the one that had come to her – had done this for a reason. He’d gone to too much effort for it to be otherwise.

Now she was calmer, the room was silent. It was a kind of silence she had never experienced before. At home, even in the dead of night, there were sounds: plumbing gurgling, floorboards creaking, cars passing by.

But in here: nothing. It felt heavy and dead.

Total, deafening silence.

The smell of vomit.

And then she heard a noise. It came from somewhere behind the door. It was a kind of scraping, like a stone being moved or the brakes of a large truck being hit hard.

A door of some kind being opened, maybe.

She held her breath. The scraping noise stopped, then came again.

The stone being put back. The door being closed.

And then a footstep, right outside the door to the room.

And then the handle turning.

2

At first she didn’t recognize him.

She’d been expecting a man in grey trousers and a scruffy shirt, but he was wearing a blue towelling bathrobe. It had a faded insignia on it – some kind of animal – and was tied tight at the waist. He was wearing socks with snowflakes on them – given, perhaps, by a grandchild – and a pair of dark green slippers.

He was tall and heavily built, but looked soft, his muscles slack and fleshy. There was a sheen to the skin on his face that made him look almost like he was made of wax.

In his hands he held a tray. There was a plate of food and a glass of milk on it. He put it on the floor, then locked the door with a key he kept on a chain around his wrist. She made a note of that.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Something to eat.’

His voice was halting, the words coming in bursts. Something – pause – to eat. It was as though he didn’t get much practice speaking.

Maggie looked at the plate. There were some kind of fried potatoes and a few stalks of boiled broccoli, along with some fish fingers. Fish fingers! How old did he think she was? Six?

‘I’m not hungry,’ she said. ‘I want to go home.’

He stared at her for a while, his mouth settling into a look of resigned disappointment.

‘I thought you might say that,’ he replied. ‘That’s not going to’ – another pause, followed by a rush of words – ‘be possible, I’m afraid.’ He smiled, his gums pink and fleshy. ‘Sorry, my darling.’

Maggie’s skin prickled. ‘You can’t keep me here,’ she said. ‘Let me go.’

He shook his head.

She clenched her fists. ‘Let me go!’ she shouted. ‘You have to let me go!’

‘I don’t have to do anything,’ he said. ‘Not any more. Not now.’

‘My mum will find me,’ Maggie said. ‘My mum and dad will come and find me so you might as well let me leave now. If you let me go I won’t tell anyone what you did.’

‘I’m touched by your faith in your parents,’ the man said. ‘But I don’t think you’re right. There’s no way she will be able to find you here. No one will. I’ve put a lot of thought – and effort – into this.’ He made a sweeping gesture, indicating the room around them. ‘It’s totally hidden. I made sure of that.’

He spoke in a serious, quiet voice. Maggie fought the urge to scream.

‘What do you want?’ Maggie said. ‘What do you want from me?’

‘I don’t want anything from you,’ the man replied. ‘What would I want from you? I want to help you.’

‘Help me?’ Maggie shook her head. ‘This isn’t helping me,’ she said. ‘This is the opposite of helping me.’

‘No,’ the man said. ‘You say that because you don’t understand. This is what you need. I’m giving you what you need.’

His pink, gummy smile came again. He looked at her, his eyes lidded. He was trying to be seductive, she realized. She shuddered.

The panic came closer to the surface. Her vision blurred. She took a deep breath. It was a struggle to retain what little control of herself she had left.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand. How is this what I need?’

‘Because this will keep you safe,’ the man said. ‘That’s all I want. To keep you safe.’

It was the worst possible situation. He thought he was doing the right thing, and people who thought that were nearly impossible to convince they were wrong, especially when they were crazy.

She didn’t know much – where she was, who he was, what his plans were – but she knew one thing. She knew she was in a lot of trouble.

‘Why me?’ she said. ‘Why do you care about me being safe?’

The man frowned. His expression darkened, his mouth flattening into an angry line. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ he said.

It was far from obvious, but Maggie nodded. ‘Kind of,’ she said. ‘But not completely.’

The man raised his eyebrows and tilted his head, as though explaining something extremely simple to someone who should not need it explaining.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Why would anyone do all this?’ Again, he gestured at the room. ‘I mean, there’s only one reason to go to all this trouble for someone, isn’t there?’

‘I suppose so,’ Maggie said. ‘It’s because …’ she paused, leaving the question hanging.

The man laughed. ‘I can’t believe I have to tell you!’ he said. ‘You really don’t know, do you?’

Maggie shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry,’ he said. ‘Everything’s going to be OK, for the same reason that I built all of this.’ He smiled. ‘It’s because I love you, dummy. Why else would it be?’

Maggie stared at him.

‘You don’t – you can’t love me. You don’t even know me!’

The man giggled. ‘Come on now, Fruitcake, of course I do!’

Fruitcake? Had he called her Fruitcake? That was impossible. Only her dad called her that.

‘Who told you about Fruitcake?’ she whispered. ‘How do you know that?’

‘I know everything about you,’ he said. ‘I’ve been watching you for years. And now you’re mine.’ He smiled. ‘Safe and sound and all mine, forever and ever.’

Maggie felt bile rise in her throat. She leaned forward and retched, vomit splattering the carpet by the side of the bed. The man tutted. His expression had hardened, the anger back.

‘I’m sorry you did that,’ he said. ‘What a mess you made.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ll bring you something to clean it up with tomorrow, but tonight, to remind you not to do it again, you can live with it.’

Maggie didn’t care. The room already smelled of vomit. She’d rip up a corner of carpet or pull the mattress over it and cover it somehow.

‘Fine,’ she said, looking up at him through narrowed eyes. Part of her knew antagonizing him was a bad idea, but she didn’t care. She was angry. ‘Leave it. If it means you go away then that’s fine by me.’

His expression hardened further. ‘I am trying,’ he said, slowly. ‘To help you. To take care of you. Have you any idea what could happen to you out there? Here you’re safe. Protected. Sheltered. Out there’ – he shook his head – ‘you could be ruined.’ He reached into the pocket of his robe and took out the packet of Marlboro Lights she had bought a few days back. ‘These, for example. It’s unbecoming for a young lady to smoke this filth. I can’t allow that. I have to help you. Don’t you see?’

Maggie ignored the question. ‘Leave me alone,’ she said. Her voice rose to a scream. ‘Just fucking fuck off!’

He flinched. ‘Don’t swear,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t like it. Good girls don’t swear. And you’re a good girl, which is why you’re here.’

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!’ Maggie screamed. ‘Fucking fuck off, you fucking bastard!’

He rubbed his cheek and temple. His left foot tapped on the floor. ‘I can’t,’ he began, ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this. This is awful, it’s’ – he puffed his cheeks out, his eyes twitching in agitation. ‘It’s simply not acceptable.’ The last words came out as a shout, and he glared at her, his body now still again. ‘Stop it. Stop it now. You’re ruining everything.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘You will,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to do this today. Not the first time we met. But I think I have to. I think I have to teach you a lesson. This really isn’t what I wanted, I’d like you to know that. But you leave me with no choice. This is your fault.’

His right hand went to the blue belt of his bathrobe. He undid the belt and the bathrobe opened. Underneath he was wearing a white T-shirt and pale blue Y-fronts. They were tented at the front. He gripped the cloth. ‘This is your doing, Fruitcake,’ he mumbled.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Please, no.’

‘You brought this on yourself,’ he said. His face was now fixed, a hungry, wild look in his eyes; he seemed almost like a different person. ‘Lie down. On your front.’

Maggie shook her head. ‘No. I’ll do what you want. I won’t swear. I’ll be good, I promise.’

‘This is what I want,’ he said, and took a step towards her. She shrank back, her shoulders pressing into the wall. He reached out, and grabbed her arm. He twisted it, forcing her on to her front. He lay on her, heavy, his breath hot against the back of her neck.

She tried to pull away from him but it was impossible. He was too strong. He forced her legs apart with his knee.

When he was finished, he grunted and stood up. She lay face down, her eyes closed.

‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I love you, Fruitcake.’

Monday, 18 June 2018
Five Days to Go
1

She was woken up by Max climbing on to her. They slept together, but most nights he rolled off the mattress on to the floor. Wherever he slept, though, he almost invariably woke before her and climbed on top of her. The lamp was on low. She didn’t like to sleep with it on, but hated the darkness when it was off, so she had begged the man to buy her a dimmer switch – she had told him exactly what to buy – and installed it herself. He had watched, his eyes narrow with confusion that she knew how. It was one of the many things he didn’t know about her. She was not what he thought she was, not a helpless child in need of rescue, and she was glad to have the light to remind her of who she had been, of the girl who had been taught electrics and plumbing and car maintenance by her father.

Now she was awake she turned it up full. Max climbed off her and she watched as he emptied the box of Duplo on to the floor. He arranged them into some kind of square. Maggie propped herself up on her elbow.

‘What you making, bub?’ she said.

He glanced up at her.

‘Light beam,’ he said. ‘So we can go somewhere.’

If only it was so easy, she thought.

‘Great,’ she replied. ‘I can’t wait. Where should we go first?’

‘I think to the moon,’ he said. ‘To see the man. And his mum.’

‘OK,’ Maggie said. ‘The moon it is. You work on the light beam and I’ll get some fuel.’

By the bath there were two boxes. One contained Max’s clothes, and the other contained hers – over the years, the man had brought her some jeans and T-shirts, as well as underwear. She had no bras – the elastic on the one she had been wearing when he took her had worn out, and he had never replaced it. She supposed it would have been odd for a man of his age to buy bras. Children’s clothes or nappies were one thing – he might have grandkids – but not bras. He probably could have done it without being noticed, but she had learned that the man was super careful.

She took out a pair of dark blue jeans. They were high-waisted and shapeless and the kind of thing her mum would have considered out of date but the ones she had been wearing needed to be washed. She would leave them by the door and the man would return them in a day or two.

As she pulled them on the button came off. She picked it up; it was cheap, the front metal but the back made of plastic. She reached to the back of the shelf for her sewing kit. It wasn’t much; just a spool of cotton thread and one needle, but it was enough for the infrequent repairs she needed to do. She had convinced the man to get it for her a few years back; at first he had refused, but he seemed to like the idea that she could use it to reduce the number of clothes he had to buy, and so, one day, the spool and the needle had been left on the tray.

That was all she had. Other than the bucket, bowl, and mattress, all he had brought her were some clothes, the Duplo Lego, and the sewing kit. No knives and forks, no shoelaces, no blunt objects. It was wise of him. The last thing he needed was for her to have a weapon of any kind. There were times – many of them – when she would have used it.

There wasn’t much you could do with a needle and thread and some Lego, though. She’d thought about it often enough.

She’d thought about everything. Tried some things; in the first few weeks she was here she had attacked him when he opened the door, clawing at his face with her nails, feeling the skin break and blood flow.

But he was a man and bigger than her and stronger and he threw her across the room then advanced on her, his face puce with anger, his cheeks lined with scratches. He screamed at her and for a moment she thought he was going to kill her – he could, no one knew she was here – but then he breathed deeply and turned around and walked out.

And a few minutes later the lamp went off.

The only light source was gone. She had assumed that the only switch was the one on the wall, but it turned out she was wrong. The man had one on the outside, or maybe he’d turned off the trip switch. Her dad – an electrician – had showed her how they worked a few years back, explained how they kept the electrical system safe. Since she was young he had included her in his work, and, when she was fourteen he had let her change the light fitting in her bedroom from a simple overhead fitting to an angled downlighter.

So she knew a bit about electrical work, but it didn’t help her. The room was in darkness.

And it stayed that way for a long time. Days, maybe. She lost track of time, became disorientated, screamed until she couldn’t hear herself. She lay on her bed shaking, visions swimming through the dark.

It was a terrible few days. To this day she didn’t know how long it had lasted. She had it marked as three on her calendar, but it could have been one, or seven. She’d see what the real date was when she got out of here and find out how many days had gone missing.

If she got out of here.

Eventually the light had fizzed back on. The man appeared in the doorway minutes later.

Don’t do that again, he said. Or it will be twice as long.

She had tried again, though, and the memory of the punishment after that attempt still made her blood run cold. It had been worse than darkness, even darkness for twice as long.

Much worse.

She picked up the jeans and the needle and thread and began to sew the button back on. The plastic hoop at the back of the button had cracked and was going to fall off again soon, so she wrapped the cotton thread tightly around the plastic to secure it before sewing the button into place. She felt jaded, foggy, like she’d barely slept. It was the lingering effect of the disappointment the night before. For a moment she’d been sure the man was going to agree to let them leave – she’d seen it in his face, a tiredness at having to keep them there and a desire to embrace her suggestion and let them go – but then he had said no.

They have my DNA.

Which meant what, exactly? What little she knew about DNA had come from watching television shows in which cops used it to catch criminals and daytime chat-show hosts used it to prove paternity. Was that what he was afraid of? That the cops would take Max’s DNA and match it to his? But how would they even know?

There was only one way. They had his, in some database, and that meant he had done something – or been a suspect for something – like this before.

Her hands stopped moving, the needle part way through the waistband of the jeans. Was she not the first to be down here? She looked around the room, picturing another mother sitting on the bed, her child playing on the floor. It was hard to imagine someone else in here. She associated it so much with her and Seb and Leo and Max.

And he’d said, years ago, when she was first here, that he’d built it for her.

So maybe he had done something else, committed some other crime, and, when he was caught, had decided to make sure he could never be caught again.

By building this hidden room that no one could ever find.

And keeping her here forever. If she hadn’t known it before she did now – this was forever.

She had to do something, and soon. She looked at Max, her son who would be three in five days.

Five days.

She had to do something now. And she had – she thought – the first glimmerings of an idea.

‘So,’ Max said, oblivious to the tragedy of his surroundings and the fact that, in five days, even this would be taken from him. ‘Are you ready to come on the light beam, Mummy?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am.’

But her mind was elsewhere. It was on what she was going to do.

2

The man stood in the door, a tray in his hand. When he was leaving food or water or cleaning supplies he never came into the room. He put them on the carpet, picked up anything Maggie had left for him – nappies, plates, cleaning supplies – and left. It was only when he was in his blue bathrobe that he locked the door behind him, secured the key on a chain around his wrist, and entered the room properly.

It was the morning, so there was no bathrobe. He lowered the tray to the floor and stood up. There were two paper plates, each covered with creased tinfoil. He liked the tinfoil to be folded and placed back on the tray; Maggie assumed he re-used it.

He was that kind of person. Neat, particular, fastidious. She pictured his house as a museum, the rooms fixed and unchanging, almost unlived in, with patterned wallpaper on the walls and lace curtains filtering the daylight. It was a sham, a face to the world. His life was down here.

The thought made her shudder.

When he walked out she noticed a stiffness in the way he moved. She’d seen brown spots on his hands, the skin loose and sallow. He was still strong but there was a growing unsteadiness in him. He was getting older.

Weaker. More vulnerable. One day she would be able to overpower him.

Today, maybe.

Today she might get out of here. She pictured the newspapers: MISSING GIRL FOUND DECADES LATER. She’d be reunited with her parents. In her mind they were the same as when she had been abducted, but, like the man, they’d be older too. Fifty-three now. She tried to imagine what they looked like. Would Dad be bald? Mum grey? Were they still together?

Still alive?

And James would be twenty-six. He might have kids. She wondered what music he listened to, what books he read, what job he did. He’d have cast his first vote, lost his virginity, gone to university, all of it a mystery to her. She didn’t even know who the prime minister was. Was it still Blair? Surely not. Probably someone from a whole new generation of politicians. Maybe the country was at war; maybe it had adopted the euro. She knew nothing.

She closed her eyes. She’d missed so much. It was weird, though: without the man there’d have been no Seb, Leo or Max, and she couldn’t imagine life without them. Especially without Max.

She looked at him. He was sleeping on the mattress, his mouth parted. She picked up the calendar, took her pencil and crossed out another day.

S | Su | M | Tu | W | Th | F
|  |  |  |  |  | 1
2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15
16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22
23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29
30 |  |  |  |  |  |

The sight and smell of the breakfast made her feel sick.

But she couldn’t have eaten anyway. She was too on edge. Because today she was going to get out of here.

She pushed the breakfast away.

3

She had a plan. It was simple, but she thought it could work.

When he came, she would attack him.

Which was a start, but it still wouldn’t be enough. She’d learned that the hard way before. He was older now, though, and weaker; she was strong from the press-ups and planks and other exercises. It would be different.

Even so, she was still five-three and about eight and a half stone, and he was six-foot-three and probably sixteen stone. She knew from the times he had lain on top of her how heavy that was, and how hard it was to move that kind of weight.

She’d get only one chance to hit him and it would have to work, or he’d overpower her and take Max anyway and repeat the awful, awful punishment he had meted out last time.

So that one hit had to work. She had to maximize its effect. And for that she needed one more element, an element she thought she might have figured out.

4

The man opened the door. He was holding a tray, and he locked the door, his attention on the key.

When he turned to Maggie, he frowned.

‘What?’ he said. ‘What are you doing?’

Maggie was sitting on the mattress. She smiled at him. Max was sleeping on the floor, his head on a pillow; it had been a struggle to get him to go to sleep.

She stood up. The man’s gaze moved up and down her body.

Her naked body.

‘Put the tray down,’ she said, in the closest approximation she could manage of a sultry tone. ‘I’ve been thinking about you.’

The man’s eyes narrowed in suspicion but she could see the sudden flare of desire in them.

Desire for sex, yes, but more for love.

He bent at the waist and placed the tray on the ground and she launched herself at him, hitting him hard in the small of his back. He fell forward and there was a thud as his head hit the wall. The tray fell to the floor, the plate and cup clattering together before settling on to the carpet. She grabbed for the key, but he twisted his hand away and rolled on to his back, staring at her, his breathing heavy. Blood beaded on his forehead. He put his finger to it, and examined his blood.

‘You fool,’ he said. ‘You stupid fool. You really think that is enough to hurt me?’

He levered himself up on to his elbows then stood up. Maggie took a step backwards. It was over, already. Her plan had failed miserably. And now he was going to punish her.

At least Max was still asleep. He was a good sleeper, so she doubted he’d wake up. She was glad; he didn’t need to see this.

He grabbed her upper arm and shoved her, hard. The gasp she made as her back hit the wall and the air left her lungs reminded her of his strength, of the strength she had thought – ridiculously – she could overpower.

And now, the payback.

‘What are you going to do to me?’ she said.

The man contemplated her.

‘Fruitcake,’ he said. ‘My little Fruitcake. I understand why you did that. I’m not inhuman. I know how hard what’s to come will be for you. But it’s for the best. I can’t leave him with you. If I do, we won’t be able to be together.’

Maggie didn’t reply. She couldn’t. The fear of what he was going to do to Max and her anger at her failure to save him were too great.

‘So I won’t do anything to you, this time.’ His expression hardened. ‘But don’t do it again, Fruitcake. This is your one free pass, OK?’

She nodded.

He smiled.

‘Love you,’ he said, and unlocked the door.

Twelve Years Earlier, 9 July 2006
1

Martin Cooper opened his eyes. He looked at his watch; it was almost four thirty in the morning, which meant he’d been asleep for around two hours.

That was all he was going to get.

It had been two nights. He rubbed his eyes. They felt raw. The night Maggie disappeared he hadn’t slept at all and, with tonight’s two restless hours, he could feel the exhaustion building up. It made no difference, though. There was no way he would be able to sleep again.

And he didn’t want to. He wanted to find his daughter.

He got out of bed and crossed the landing to her room. He opened the door and looked inside, half-expecting, half-hoping, to see a shape in her bed, sleeping off the effects of wherever she’d been.

It was empty.

On his way back from the park the night she disappeared he’d called the police and reported she was missing.

We’ll put out an alert, the officer he spoke to said, but she’s probably with a friend. More than likely she’ll turn up in the morning.

Except he’d spoken to all her friends and she wasn’t with them, and they didn’t know of anyone else she would have been with, any boy or man she’d mentioned.

So he and Sandra and James and his brother, Tony, and his friend from work, Reid, and Freddie, his neighbour, had spent the day looking for her. Between them they’d gone to every pub in Warrington and Manchester and Liverpool and Wigan and St Helens and anywhere else they could think of, and shown them a photo of Maggie.

None of them remembered seeing her. Quite a few said they couldn’t be sure.

Busy night, mate. Lots of people in here. Have you tried the cops?

He had. They hadn’t done much. They were looking for her, but they still thought she’d show up.

He’d lost track of the number of times he’d heard someone say most of the time teenagers do.

Most of the time wasn’t good enough. And Martin knew his little girl. She hadn’t gone off with a new boyfriend, enjoying herself while her parents worried. Some teenagers would – and maybe they were the ones that showed up – but not Mags. Not his Fruitcake.

If she was missing there was a reason, and he needed to find her.

He hadn’t, though. He came home, eventually, at one a.m., flat and exhausted and terrified. He’d slept, for those two hours.

And now he was awake. He didn’t know when he would ever be able to sleep again.

2

Next to him, Sandra rolled on to her side. Her breathing quickened and she sighed.

‘Are you awake?’ he said.

‘Yes. I barely slept.’

‘Me neither.’ He looked at his watch again. ‘It’s four thirty-seven.’

Their bedroom door opened slowly. James stood in the frame. ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he said. ‘I was waiting for you to wake up.’

‘You should have come in,’ Martin said. He felt a surge of love for his son. ‘Anytime you need me, I’m here.’

‘It’s early.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Dad,’ James said. ‘Can we go and look for her?’

Martin replaced the nozzle in the petrol pump and walked across the garage forecourt to pay. The car had been full the day before, but he had driven every street and park and country road for miles around. Martin had marked the ones they had driven on a map with a fluorescent marker and there were very few left. He had driven slowly, James looking out of one side, him looking out of the other. At every open pub or newsagent or café or clothes shop or place that looked like it might have attracted a fifteen-year-old they had stopped and shown photos of Maggie.

No one had seen her.

He scanned the shop as he entered, in case Maggie was inside buying chewing gum or a magazine or a packet of cigarettes. He hoped she was. He hoped he found his fifteen-year-old daughter buying cigarettes, because then he would know she was safe.

Because then he would have her back, and he could sleep and eat and breathe and live again.

He handed his card to the shop assistant.

‘Number six,’ he said. As she rang it up, he put the photos of Maggie – one a close-up of her face taken a couple of weeks ago, the other her school portrait – on the counter.

‘You haven’t seen this girl, have you?’ he asked.

The woman – about his age and with a pinched, smoker’s face – gave him a suspicious look.

‘No,’ she said. ‘She missing?’

‘Yes. She’s my daughter.’

The looked softened into one of sympathy.

‘Oh. How long’s she been gone?’

‘Two nights.’

Just saying it made him feel sick with worry. It had a similar effect on the woman.

‘Two nights is two nights too long,’ she said. ‘Hold on. I’ll be right back.’

She picked up the photos and walked through a door into an office. A few minutes later she came back holding a sheaf of paper.

‘Photocopies,’ she said. ‘I can hand them out, see if anyone recognizes her. Give me your number and I’ll make sure we let you know.’

Martin wrote down his phone number, in part glad of the help, and in part terrified.

Because it suddenly felt all the more real.

3

They got home at nine. There was a car parked in the driveway next to Sandra’s red Ford Focus. A dark blue Honda Civic with a large dent in the boot. Martin stiffened.

‘Who the hell’s that?’ he said. He pulled up at the side of the road and opened the car door. ‘Let’s go and see.’

James followed him into the house. He had large dark circles under his eyes and a drawn look. Martin put his arm around him and kissed his forehead. It was oily; his son was giving off a pungent, hormonal smell.

‘It’ll be OK,’ Martin said. ‘Really, it will.’

He was trying his best, but he wasn’t sure he was able to sound like he really believed his own words.

In the living room, Sandra was perched on the edge of the sofa. She had a mug of tea in her hands. A woman with short, dark hair was sitting in the armchair opposite her.

‘Hi,’ she said. She didn’t need to ask if he had found Maggie. She gestured at the woman.

‘This is Detective Inspector …’ her voice tailed off.

‘Wynne,’ the woman said. ‘DI Jane Wynne.’ She looked at Martin, her face still and expressionless. There was a questioning, intelligent look in her eyes. ‘I’m here about Margaret.’

‘Maggie,’ Martin said, reflexively. ‘We call her Maggie.’

Wynne nodded. ‘Maggie,’ she said. ‘You reported her missing two nights ago, around midnight.’ She paused, her expression carefully neutral. ‘Even though most of these cases resolve quite quickly, we do feel that this case requires more attention.’

Martin steadied himself against the back of the sofa. Although he wanted all the help they could get with finding Maggie, these were not words he wanted to hear.

‘Why?’ he said. ‘Why does it require more attention?’

‘It’s a combination of things,’ Wynne said. ‘Maggie has no history of this kind of behaviour. You reported that none of her friends have seen her. She’s fifteen. And then there’s the amount of time that has passed. Although many teenagers go missing, it’s been two nights. And that is a concern.’

‘You think something bad has happened?’ Sandra said, in a low voice.

Wynne glanced at James. ‘I think it’s a possibility,’ she said. ‘If she was away for one night, that would be pretty normal for a teenager. Drink too much, fall asleep somewhere, come home the next day, fearing punishment. All pretty standard. But two nights is different.’

‘So what happens next?’ Martin said.

‘We contact the press,’ Wynne said. ‘Get her photo out there. You take me through the last few days, I interview her friends, look at phone records, see what might be of interest, whether there are any leads. We assemble some officers to follow those leads.’ She rubbed her eye. ‘And then we do whatever we can to find your daughter.’

4

Martin stood in his daughter’s room. It was a curious mixture of childlike and grown-up; on her desk were some earrings and a CD by an artist he had never heard of and a book of short stories by Kate Chopin, yet by her pillow there was the blue bear – Rudi – he had bought her when she was six and he and Sandra were trying to stop her climbing into their bed every night.

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