Seven Days Page 24

  She did. She knew all about what happened.

  The rapes. The captivity. The darkness. The motorbike helmet. The rat.

  The sons, taken and killed.

  And in her hands, her throbbing, aching hands, she held the means to end it.

  ‘I’m not disobeying you,’ she said. ‘I don’t feel well. I really don’t.’

  ‘God,’ he said, disgust lacing his voice. ‘Don’t you ever learn?’

  Maggie shifted so she was facing him.

  ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘That’s the problem, right there.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he said, confusion creeping into his expression.

  ‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘I don’t ever fucking learn.’

  The look of confusion turned to one of alarm as she threw the covers back and sprang to her feet, her left hand – the painful one, the one she had mutilated – outstretched, thrusting towards the man’s face.

  His eyes followed it, widening as he saw what she had done to it and understood the situation he was in.

  Understood that things had changed.

  The movement sent pain shooting up her arm, but she was able to ignore it. In fact, she welcomed it. It was the price she had to pay for freedom, and she paid it willingly.

  Her hand reached the man’s face and she clawed at it, listening to him squeal in pain.

  She screamed in triumph. There was blood everywhere.

  Lots of blood.

  His blood.

  For she was transformed.

  She had talons.

  2

  The man screamed and jumped back. He clutched his face, his right hand covering the wounds. Blood oozed out from under his palm. He backed towards the door, his other hand scrabbling for the key.

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘What are you – how?’

  Maggie stepped towards him. She looked at her left hand. Her fingers were mottled and bruised and the pain was like a bright light, but she didn’t care. It was working.

  And she was only getting started. In her right hand she had another surprise.

  The idea had come when she had stood on the Duplo. The brick was large, about two inches by two inches, and the plastic was hard.

  These are hard, she had said to Max. And she had thought I’m glad it’s not broken. The edge would be like a knife.

  It had all come to her in a rush. She had put Max on the mattress.

  Stay there. Mummy has to do something.

  She picked up the Duplo brick and took it to the bath. She lay it on the carpet, then lifted the wooden base of the bath and slammed it down on the Duplo.

  It squirted away, unbroken. She placed it against the floor and hit it again, then again and again and again. The hard plastic Duplo split in two.

  She picked it up and ran her fingers along the edge. It was as sharp as she had thought it would be. She took it and drew it across the skin of her forearm, pressing it down hard. It left a thin red line. As she watched, blood welled up in it.

  Max was indignant. Mummy! What are you doing? That’s my toy!

  It’s OK, darling. I’ll get you some more.

  Maggie stared at the broken Duplo. This was it. This was the weapon she needed. She could make lots of them, pick the sharpest and use them to attack the man. But how? She was hardly going to do much damage by coming at him with a piece of Duplo Lego held in her hands. She needed something to attach the plastic to, some kind of club.

  She looked around the room. She already knew there was nothing. Just the clothes and the bleach and the sewing kit.

  The sewing kit.

  She took a deep breath.

  It might work. It really might.

  But it would hurt.

  She looked at her left hand. The hard, sharp pieces of Duplo had blood on the ends where they had gouged the man the first time. They were holding well; it was one of the things she had worried about when she attached them to her fingers, winding the cotton thread around them in a lattice that held them in place.

  She had tried it a few times before she got it right. She had attached one to her forefinger, but it had fallen off as soon as she started to scrape it down the wall – her trial run for the man’s face – and it had not been until the fourth or fifth that she got one to stick.

  And she learned that the cotton had to be so tight it felt like someone was slicing her finger apart. The thin thread bit into the flesh of her finger so hard that it drew blood, which brought a new level of agony. It burned.

  And then there was the stitching.

  To make sure the Duplo truly held she pushed the needle through the end of her finger, drawing the thread through her flesh, then wrapping it under her finger, before putting the needle back into the same hole and repeating the process until her hand was slick with blood and she was sure the Duplo would hold.

  When it was done, she looked at Max, the pain leaving her short of breath. She had three more fingers and a thumb to go, but she wasn’t sure she could bear this until the man came. She wasn’t sure she could bear it for another second.

  But she had to. This was for Max. For his life. His entire life. This was the way she would make sure he saw his fourth birthday.

  An hour – two hours? A day? A week? – of pain, for a lifetime with Max?

  No question.

  She picked up the biggest, sharpest piece of Duplo and started on the next finger.

  ‘What?’ The man looked at her from behind his hand. His expression was a mixture of fear and shock. No doubt he had expected her to argue with him when he came for Max, maybe try to fight him, but he had not expected this.

  He held out his other hand, palm up.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Stop.’

  Maggie feinted with her left hand and then jumped forward, slamming her right hand into his face. In it she was holding the tinfoil ball of bleach, and the liquid smeared all over his face, mixing with blood and turning pink.

  He screamed again, swiping his face in an attempt to wipe the bleach from it. It was pointless. The bleach was in the wounds and all he was doing was rubbing it in further.

  He staggered back; when he was off balance, Maggie jumped forward and pushed him on to the floor. She looked down at his face, saw the blotches and patches of stubble and wispy hair growing from his nose, saw how he had aged, saw just how much time had passed, and she understood what he had done to her, what he had taken from her and from her brother and from her parents.

  She grabbed the side of his face, the shard of Duplo on her thumb digging into his lower lip, her other four fingers forming a semi-circle stretching from his eye to his chin, and she squeezed.

  The sharp points of the hard plastic made little troughs in his skin, then, one by one, they broke the skin and slid into the muscles and flesh of his face. She screamed, and pulled her fingers together, as though making a fist. They left deep gouges. She freed her forefinger, then plunged it into the man’s right eye.

  He bellowed, and twisted away from her, then hit her in the ribs with his right hand. He lifted his knees and kicked her away, then scrabbled backwards.

  Winded, she stared at him. He stared back. The right side of his face was a mess, his eye already closed.

  She got to her feet and took a step towards him. He backed into the corner.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘You can go. Please. Go. But no more.’

  She shook her head. She stood over him, and raised her left hand, the Duplo talons bloody.

  He stared at it, his one good eye wide in fear.

  And then, with her right hand, she snatched the key and pulled it as hard as she could.

  She backed towards the door and unlocked it. The man twitched.

  ‘Stay there,’ she said. ‘Or I’ll take your other eye.’

  She felt a sense of elation.

  She had done it. This was it.

  All she had to do was unlock the door, then go to the bath, get Max, and they would be free.

  And then there was a noise.

/>   A banging coming from the bath.

  ‘Mummy,’ a muffled voice said. ‘Where are you?’

  Martin

  Martin pulled into a car parking space at the hospital. It was hard to be back here. This was the third time, and he had hoped it was over for good.

  But maybe that was another hope that would not be granted to him.

  He walked into the consulting room, two cups of tea in his hand.

  Sandra was sitting on the bed. She smiled. ‘I’m not sure I feel like anything,’ she said. She put a hand on his forearm. Her hand was dry and warm, the veins prominent. She looked at him. Her hair was beginning to grow back, but it was still short. ‘I’m a bit nervous.’

  ‘Me too,’ Martin said. ‘Me too. But it’ll be OK,’ he said. ‘It really will.’

  She didn’t reply. When he looked at her there were tears on her cheeks.

  Maggie

  There was the sound of wood scraping on wood, then a blond, curly-haired head appeared over the lip of the bath.

  ‘Mummy?’ Max said. ‘Are you OK?’

  The man thought – and reacted – more quickly than Maggie did. They were an equal distance from the corner of the room with the bath in, and, before she could move, he half-sprang, half-ran to it. He reached out and grabbed Max, then held him up.

  His hands and face and clothes were covered in blood. His one remaining eye was wild, his mouth parted as he panted for breath.

  ‘The key,’ he growled. ‘Put it on the floor.’

  Maggie shook her head. ‘No.’

  He gripped Max’s neck. ‘Then he’s dead.’

  ‘Ow,’ Max said. ‘Stop it! You’re hurting.’

  Maggie took a step towards them. Her left hand – the one with the talons – lifted.

  The man shook his head. ‘Don’t take another step. I’ll break his neck.’

  Maggie blinked. Tears came to her eyes. She couldn’t believe she’d got so close, only to fail at the last step. It was going to be even worse now. The man would take Max – that was for sure – and then what? He’d leave her in darkness for days? Weeks? Torture her? He’d have to go to the doctor for his eye – no doubt he’d make up some story about getting mugged – and then he’d take it all out on her.

  And she would not be able to avoid his punishment. The bleach was gone. Even that way out was lost to her now.

  So close, but all she’d done was make things worse.

  ‘Put the key in the door,’ the man said. ‘Then go and lie on the mattress, face down, your hands behind your head.’

  ‘Please,’ Maggie said. ‘Leave Max with me.’

  The man laughed. ‘Key in the door.’

  So this was it. The same story, yet again. She’d managed more of a fight this time, but Max was gone either way. She could try to attack the man again, but she had no doubt he would snap Max’s neck.

  Then, though, there would be nothing stopping her from killing the man.

  No. She couldn’t do anything that would harm Max. She had to keep him alive.

  ‘Key in the door,’ the man said. ‘Then walk slowly to the bed and lie down.’

  Maggie turned to the door, the key between her thumb and forefinger. She inserted it into the lock. She’d dreamed of this moment so many times, dreamed of standing by this door, key in her hand and now here she was.

  As trapped as she had ever been.

  She would lie on the bed and the man would take Max and this would be over.

  And she would be alone. She paused.

  She looked at the man. She looked at Max.

  She had to try. If she didn’t Max was dead anyway. She had no choice. She had to leave him.

  She had to leave him with the man.

  She stared at him, drank in the beauty of her son, maybe for the last time.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But don’t worry. I’ll be back for you.’

  It was the hardest thing she had ever done. She unlocked the door and walked through it.

  James

  Sitting in his flat only confirmed that he was doing the right thing. For the first time he could see how squalid it was. Filthy mugs of week-old tea, over-flowing ashtrays, the rotten, fetid smell of decay permeating everything – this mess, this obscenity, was his life.

  He had everything he needed. Two hundred quid’s worth of smack. It was enough to kill a horse. There’d be some left over for Davo and Carl. He wondered whether they would miss him. Probably for as long as it took to get high from whatever was left. Once that happened they would no more care about James than they would anything else.

  That was exactly the problem. All James cared about was the next fix, and he understood now that was no kind of life. He also understood there was no way out of it. He wasn’t strong enough to dig himself out of the hole. His pain went too deep, went back to the day his sister hadn’t come home.

  He’d lost more than Maggie that day. He’d woken up a fourteen-year-old boy who messed around with his friends and wondered if he’d ever kiss a girl and thought the world was basically a fun, safe place and he’d gone to bed a fourteen-year-old boy who looked at the world with fear.

  He’d gone to bed scared of what was out there, and the fear had never gone away.

  Until he took heroin.

  So that was his choice. A life lived in fear, the ghost of his sister – who he had loved, had idolized – forever tormenting him, or this. This squalid, filthy flat.

  He picked up a needle and straightened his arm. He looked at the vein, anticipated the prick and rush and bliss.

  He smiled. Finally, this was the end.

  Maggie

  She opened the door and looked up the stairs. There was a square of yellow light at the top. She stepped on the first step and glanced over her shoulder.

  Max was on the floor and the man was running towards the door.

  ‘Stop!’ he screamed. ‘Come back here!’

  She ran up the stairs. They emerged from a rectangular hole on to the concrete floor of a garage. Next to the hole was a heavy piece of wood, the source of the scraping sound she had heard so often. To her right was a white door. There was a window on her left; rain ran down it.

  Rain.

  Actual rain.

  The garage door was closed, so she ran to the white door. It must lead to the house and then to the outside world.

  She grabbed the handle. It was unlocked; she stepped through into a kitchen. On the counter was a phone. It was a flip phone, modern, sleek and grey. She’d not seen many of those before. Still, she knew how to use one. She grabbed it. As soon as she was away from the man she’d call the police.

  The man. She realized it was quiet behind her. She looked back. The door to the garage was open and she could see the stairs that led to the room. The wooden cover was still off.

  Where was the man? Was he still in the room? Was he hurting Max? Or was he hiding in the garage?

  She took a step towards the door. Slowly, she pushed it wide open.

  The garage was empty.

  Which meant the man was with Max. He was waiting down there. She opened the flip phone and dialled 999. Once she had done that and the police were on the way she could go back down and protect him. She would be able to do that for long enough to free them.

  The phone rang once, twice.

  ‘Which service? Police, Ambulance, or Fire?’

  ‘Police.’

  She waited for someone to answer.

  There was a loud bang. Maggie turned to her left; the man was standing in the back door, his face contorted in anger. He was holding a shovel in his hand.

  And she realized her mistake.

  There was another door in the garage that led out to the garden. He’d gone through that and got the shovel. There was no sign of Max.

  ‘You stupid little bitch,’ he said, spitting out each word. ‘Why did you have to do this?’ He stalked to his right, blocking Maggie’s path out of the kitchen. He lifted the shovel, the blade level with his ruin
ed face.

  There was a voice from the phone. It was brisk and official. ‘Hello. What can I help you with?’

  The man charged towards her. Maggie held the phone to her ear.

  ‘Maggie Cooper,’ she said. ‘Maggie—’

  And then the shovel hit her hand and the phone flew to the floor. The man picked it up and closed it. He raised the shovel again.

  ‘You stupid, stupid little girl,’ he said.

  DI Wynne

  DI Wynne sat at her desk. Her first Saturday back at her old job and she was in the office. DS Chan was at the next desk.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘It didn’t work out down south?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ she said. ‘So here I am.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Wynne pursed her lips. ‘This and that.’

  ‘Sounds pretty serious.’

  ‘Look,’ Wynne said. ‘It wasn’t for me. That’s all.’

  There was a knock on the door. A uniformed officer came in.

  ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘You worked the case of that missing girl, right?’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Maggie Cooper.’

  Wynne sat up in her chair. ‘Yes. What about it?’

  ‘We received a notification from dispatch. They had a pretty weird call come in. Someone rang 999. It was a girl, and all she said was “Maggie Cooper”, before the line went dead. The dispatcher recognized the name and flagged it to us.’

  ‘Do they know whose phone it was from?’

  ‘Yes. A mobile. Belongs to someone called Best. Man in his sixties. Known to us.’

  Wynne stared at the PC.

  ‘Still at 7 Dover Street?’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because,’ Wynne said. ‘I know that bastard from years ago.’

  Martin

  Martin sat in the waiting room. He had a magazine – it was about golf, and had a picture of someone he didn’t know holding a trophy he didn’t recognize on the front – on his lap, but he wasn’t reading it. He couldn’t. He’d only picked it up to keep his hands busy.