Seven Days

by Alex Lake

  ‘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.