Seven Days

by Alex Lake

  He grabbed a teabag and a mug and poured in the water. There was no milk, and when he sipped it the hot liquid scalded the top of his mouth. It didn’t matter. It’d hurt for a while but the drugs would take care of it later.

  If he could get some. Carl still had a job, washing vans for a friend he used to play football with. He didn’t work much, but his friend didn’t care. If he showed up for a few hours there were always vans to be washed and he could scrape together enough cash to buy what he needed. Davo didn’t work but he left the flat most days and came back with drugs he had got from somewhere – stolen or begged, James never knew which, and never asked.

  James though, he only had one source of cash.

  He felt in his back pocket and pulled out his phone. He would have sold it long ago but he knew he needed it. He tapped out a message.

  Want to meet up later?

  His dad replied almost instantly.

  Of course. How are you?

  OK. Farmers’ Arms in Padgate at 11?

  How about a coffee instead? Costa in town? 11 is good.

  Whatever. He’d been hoping for a few beers to take the edge off, but coffee it was.

  Sure. See you there.

  2

  His dad was sitting at a table when he arrived, two coffees in front of him. There was a sandwich next to one of them. He was reading something on his phone, and when he saw James he stood up.

  He looked him up and down. Took in the dirty jeans. The torn coat.

  He held out his arms. ‘Come here,’ he said.

  James hugged him. He was aware that he was smaller than his dad, thinner and weaker. He let go, but his dad pulled him close.

  ‘I miss you, James,’ he said. He leaned back and smiled at him. ‘I could hug you all day. Although the smell might become a little too much.’

  ‘Shower’s not working.’

  ‘I could come and fix it.’

  James caught his dad’s eye. He was smiling, but there was a mixture of worry and sadness in his expression. He couldn’t bear the thought of his dad seeing the place where he lived, smelling Davo’s shit, looking at the needles and pill packets that littered the countertops and tables.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘Davo said he’ll get to it.’

  ‘Davo,’ his dad said. ‘Of course.’

  ‘He’s all right,’ James said. ‘He’s a good bloke.’

  ‘Maybe.’ His dad gestured at the sandwich. ‘BLT. Eat something.’

  James took a bite. It was good, the bacon salty and rich. He swallowed and then put it down. He felt nauseous.

  ‘I had a big breakfast.’ He could see his dad’s pain at the lie and he felt an overwhelming urge to get up and run and find some drugs to make it all go away. ‘Dad,’ he said. ‘Really. I did.’

  ‘It’s OK. How are you?’

  ‘Good. But the shower – it’s not broken. We don’t have heat. They turned the electric off.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It wasn’t our fault. We missed a payment. By accident. And now we’re behind and – you know how it is.’

  ‘You need a bit of money?’

  James nodded. ‘For the ’leccy. I’ll pay you back.’

  I’ll pay you back. He said it every time they had these conversations, a pathetic formula to cover up the fact he was begging his own father for money to buy drugs and his father was giving it to him so he could check his son was still breathing.

  And his dad would always reply the same way, absolve him of his guilt with a simple ‘You don’t have to’.

  But this time he looked at him, his eyes narrowing.

  ‘You can pay me back by stopping taking those damn drugs,’ he said. ‘And coming home.’

  James swallowed, his mouth dry. ‘I don’t take them much,’ he said. ‘And I’ll stop soon. This is temporary – I’m having a hard time at the moment. It’s not as bad as you think.’

  ‘It’s every bit as bad,’ his dad said. He put his hands on James’s. ‘Why do you do it, son? Why do you take them?’

  ‘Because … because …’ James felt the warmth of his father’s hands on his. ‘It helps. I lost my way a bit, and it helps.’

  ‘I can help. Mum can help. There’s a way out of this, James. All you have to do is say the word and we’ll be able to get you through this. We can get the right treatment, take care of you at home. You can recover. You can take as much time as you need. You’re still young. You have your whole life ahead of you.’

  ‘I know. I know. And I will, but …’ But all he could think was I need the prick of that needle and the rush and then the oblivion, everything else is too hard, too damn hard, and I can do that later, recover later, get help later, but now, now I need the needle and the pain to go away and the darkness that follows.

  ‘You can start to work again. Take your time learning a trade. Become a teacher. Anything. The world is a wonderful place, James. Life is a wonderful gift. Don’t waste yours.’ His dad cupped his chin. His hand was warm. It smelled clean. ‘And I can help you. Come with me and leave that life behind.’

  James was gripped by an all-consuming panic at the thought of going with him, of walking away from what he knew, from his friends.

  From the next high.

  ‘Sorry,’ he stammered. ‘Sorry. I can’t. Not now.’

  3

  He fingered the notes in the pocket of his jeans. Ten twenties; two hundred pounds. It was what his dad normally gave him. They met about once a fortnight, and it was enough to get him through.

  And he needed it today. Needed it more than normal after the conversation with his dad.

  Life is a wonderful gift.

  He didn’t know how his dad could say that. How he could even think it, not after what had happened to Maggie. James thought about her every day. He had since she had gone. He had wondered where she was and what had happened to her and in his head he saw her suffering violent and endless torture, heard her screams and cries for help and was powerless to do anything.

  In his dreams, he rescued her. In the daytime he endured her suffering.

  And his dad said life is a wonderful gift? It wasn’t. It was anything but.

  He’d made up his mind that his was over. In truth it had been over for a while. There was nothing worth living for. Every day was such a fight. All he had was the drugs, and that was no life.

  He was going to get a massive dose. Take it all. Dissolve into a state of bliss.

  Mum and Dad would be sad, but it was better for them in the long run. He was worthless, a pathetic, useless excuse for a son who caused them nothing but trouble and pain. It was time to set them free.

  It was time to set himself free. The sense of relief now he had made the decision was overwhelming.

  He felt the notes in his pocket. Two hundred pounds. More than enough to buy what he needed.

  Thanks, Dad, he thought.

  Martin

  He didn’t cry until he was back in his car. He would have preferred to wait until he got home but the car was as far as he could make it. He had walked through the town centre, eyes ahead, back straight, lips pressed together, holding his face as expressionless as he could, rehearsing what he would say if he bumped into someone he knew who wanted to stop for a chat.

  Great to see you but I’m late for a train. Sorry. Have to run!

  No one had stopped him and he was grateful to the universe for that small mercy. He wasn’t sure he would have been able to get out even those few sentences without his words dissolving into tears.

  He sat behind in the front seat, hands gripping the steering wheel, and cried, loud and hard, his shoulders heaving with each fresh sob.

  His boy – his son, the baby he had held – was vanishing before his eyes. Maggie had gone quickly; James was slowly fading away. He’d been shocked to see him. His face was drawn, his eyes sunken and red. There was a grey pallor to his skin, and the smell – they’d been camping once in France and in one corner of the campsite there was a stream that he disco
vered was effectively an open sewer. That was what James reminded him of.

  He didn’t know why. Why James was doing it, why Maggie had been taken, why he was being punished. What had he done to deserve this? Why him?

  He wiped the tears from his eyes. While he was with James he’d wanted to stay calm, let him know he was loved and that his parents were there for him, whatever happened. What he wanted to do was grab his son and drag him home and lock him in his room until he was better, but he’d spoken to a bunch of different experts and one thing was clear: James could only get better if he wanted to. It had to come from him. Martin could try to get him to see how desperate the situation was – stage an intervention of sorts – but it would only work if James wanted it to.

  That was the crux of it all. James had to want to stop. He had to see the drugs as a problem and not a solution and then they could start to get rid of them.

  But he was a long way from that. Martin had seen the hunger flash across his eyes when he suggested that James come with him. He had seen that – for now – his son’s first love was the high he needed, and his recovery would have to wait.

  If it came. That was the worst of it. The uncertainty. The not knowing whether his son would survive. Whether his son wanted to survive.

  And he could not go through it again. He could not lose a second child. When Maggie had gone it was as though his world had ended. He had carefully pieced together a life: a career, a wife, a house, his kids, and then it had been taken from him. He had seen how flimsy it all was. And, slowly, he had put it back together again.

  It had been all he could manage to avoid doing what James was doing now. He had flirted with it; he had sat in the darkness alone with a bottle in his hand and stared into the abyss, but for whatever reason – and he took no credit, it was no more than dumb luck – he had pulled back from it. Maybe it was James: maybe he knew his son needed him. Whatever it was he had escaped it.

  Now James would have to do the same.

  And, if it came to it, Martin would make him. He knew that by meeting his son and giving him money he was simply enabling his addiction, but that was fine by him. The alternative was to refuse and leave him penniless. James would then have a choice – give up, or fund his habit by other means. Means that would get him in more trouble, in an even deeper hole. No – it was better, far better, to see him every week or two, make sure he did not need to steal, try to get him to eat something, check he was still functioning.

  But the time was coming when Martin would have to find a way to get him out of his squalid flat and into a rehab facility. He wanted that to come from James. He wanted his son to be cured, whole again. He didn’t want him forced into sobriety and fighting it every day of his life.

  But it might come to that. And soon. James had looked worse than he had ever seen him. He put his key in the ignition and started the car. He pulled out of the parking space. James’s smell lingered on his clothes.

  He shook his head and picked up his phone. He searched for the number of the electric company.

  He’d call them and pay the bill. He knew James wouldn’t use the money for that, and he wanted his son to have hot water.

  DI Wynne

  The letter was on her desk when she arrived. She knew what it was immediately. Plain A4 envelope, printed address, her name on top.

  DETECTIVE INSPECTOR WYNNE

  She left it there while she went to get some gloves and an evidence bag. She doubted there was any forensic evidence to be had, but it paid to take care. There’d be some DNA on the envelope belonging to whoever had picked it up and posted it, but that was no use. It was possible they would get a match – two years previously they had matched the DNA to a woman who had been convicted of killing a swan in Lincoln – but all that told them was who had put the letter into the postal system, not who had written it.

  For a moment she considered throwing it away. It was the last thing she needed; three days earlier a local magistrate had come across the body of a woman in her late twenties who had been burned to death and then left in a field.

  It was the second such murder and it seemed there might be some ritualistic element. The press were all over it; there was near hysteria in the town. She did not need any distractions.

  But she had no choice. She snapped on the gloves and picked it up. She slit the top and pulled out the letter.

  DEAR DETECTIVE INSPECTOR WYNNE:

  SO, IT’S BEEN TWELVE YEARS. YOU MUST BE GETTING USED TO YOUR FAILURE BY NOW? I NOTICE YOU HAVE ANOTHER FAILURE ON YOUR HANDS. SOMEONE BURNING YOUNG WOMEN? IT’S AWFUL. GOOD LUCK CATCHING THEM. I SUSPECT YOU’LL NEED IT, IF YOUR PERFORMANCE IN FINDING MAGGIE COOPER IS ANYTHING TO GO BY, BUT I WISH YOU WELL ALL THE SAME. YOU MIGHT FIND IT HARD TO BELIEVE, BUT I THINK IT’S APPALLING THAT SOMEONE IS KILLING THESE POOR GIRLS. IT’S WANTON DESTRUCTION OF BEAUTY OF A TYPE I ABHOR.

  I ALSO – IN A STRANGE WAY – WANT YOU TO HAVE SOME SUCCESS. I’VE GROWN QUITE FOND OF YOU OVER THE YEARS AND I CAN SEE THAT IT MUST BE HARD TO HAVE TO LIVE WITH A CASE LIKE MAGGIE HANGING OVER YOU. I SUPPOSE IT’S STILL OPEN, WHICH PROBABLY MAKES IT EVEN WORSE. YOU POLICE LIKE CERTAINTY. YOU LIKE TO STAMP ‘CASE CLOSED’ ON YOUR FILES. WELL, YOU CAN DO THAT ON THIS ONE. YOU MIGHT AS WELL. YOU’LL NEVER FIND HER. I’VE THOUGHT THROUGH ALL THE WAYS YOU COULD, AND THEY’RE ALL IMPOSSIBLE.

  SO, GOOD LUCK, DETECTIVE INSPECTOR. AS USUAL, I’LL BE RAISING A GLASS TONIGHT!

  YOURS SINCERELY,

  ???

  It was different in tone to the previous years. Chatty, friendly almost. Was that because it had been more than a decade? Or was he simply getting complacent, and, as a result, careless? And that Maggie – it was so familiar, like he knew her. Like she was there, still alive.

  Wynne read it again, slowly.

  One sentence stood out.

  IT’S WANTON DESTRUCTION OF BEAUTY OF A TYPE I ABHOR.

  Which suggested that whoever it was had not killed Maggie. That would be wanton destruction of beauty.

  And if he abhorred its wanton destruction, might he not want to preserve it? Keep it safe?

  Which meant Maggie was alive, and in captivity somewhere. That had always been a possibility, but so too had murder. They had nothing to point them in either direction.

  Until this letter. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for Wynne to be convinced that this was a kidnapping and captivity case, which meant that she wasn’t dealing with a crime that had taken place ten years ago. She was dealing with a crime that was still going on.

  And that meant they needed to keep looking for Maggie.

  Sandra

  Sandra sat in the waiting room. She felt nauseous, sick with anxiety.

  A few days back, she had started to have stomach pains. They were different to the first time around but, understandably, she was very sensitive to any kind of stomach issue, so she went straight to her doctor, and she booked her in for another colonoscopy.

  She was under no illusions about what might happen. She had been through this before. The first time she had cancer the treatment – chemotherapy, followed by surgery to remove the tumour from her upper colon, followed by more chemotherapy – had seemed to work. But then, at her six-month check-up, the doctors had bad news.

  It was back. Not as bad as the first time, but back none the less.

  Which meant a whole new round of treatment.

  That too, had worked.

  Ironically, the stomach pain was gone. After she got back from the doctor’s office she’d had diarrhoea and now everything seemed normal. But she had learned the hard way that that meant nothing.

  Her phone buzzed. It was a text from Martin.

  Saw James. He’s OK. Struggling a little. On way to the hospital.

  James. He wouldn’t see her. She thought he was too embarrassed of what he had become in front of his mum. Martin was different; he was softer, more accommodating. She had been to James’s flat once and told him straight out what a disgrace it was, what a disgrace it was for a boy like
him to live in filth.

  She had not been back, and James had refused to see her. She missed him, but part of her was also relieved. It was too hard to watch.

  She put her phone down, and waited.

  Maggie

  1

  She heard the scraping noise. Max was playing on the floor. She picked him up. Pain flared in her left hand. Her eyes watered and she took a deep breath. Every second was agony, her hand like a ball of fire.

  It was no surprise given what she had done to it. It was her chance, though, and she would have to put up with it. One way or another it would be over soon.

  ‘Remember,’ she said. ‘Stay quiet, whatever happens, OK?’

  She put him in the bathtub and laid the base over him, then walked over to the mattress. She got under the covers.

  She picked up the tinfoil ball – although it was much more than that now – and kept her hands hidden.

  The man could not see them. Not until the right moment came.

  The door opened and the man came in. His eyes narrowed. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Who?’ Maggie said.

  ‘You know who. The boy.’

  ‘I don’t know where he is. I don’t feel well.’ She tried to make her voice sound weak and strained, as though she was suffering.

  It didn’t take much effort. The pain in her hand was so intense it was hard not to whimper.

  The man shut the door. He put the key in the pocket of his chinos.

  ‘Stop this,’ he said. ‘Give me the boy.’

  Maggie groaned and turned on her side. He walked towards her.

  ‘Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be,’ he said. ‘You know what happens when you disobey me.’