by Alex Lake
‘Yup. People in. Feet on the street, so to speak. Big search about to happen.’
‘For who?’
‘You remember that teenage girl who went missing, years ago? Maggie Cooper?’
‘Yeah. Something new turn up?’
‘It did. She’d been held captive. They found the place, but it was empty. Whoever took her fled with her. That’s who we’re looking for. Guy in his sixties.’
‘OK. I’ll be in. What’s the drill? Roads, railways, ports?’
‘No,’ Faro said. ‘Canals.’
It was about two miles back to his house. He walked quickly; PC Reid wanted to get into the station as soon as he could. He knew that time was critical in this kind of search; if they were going to find the girl their chances were at their highest early on.
The canal curved to the right. As he rounded the bend he saw a boat. There was a man standing on the towpath next to it, securing the mooring.
He was in his sixties. But then there were a lot of people that age on canal boats.
Probably settling down for the evening. The sun was getting low in the sky. As he climbed aboard the boat he glanced back at Oliver, then he disappeared below deck.
Maggie
The man’s dark eyes held Maggie’s gaze. He lifted the knife so the point was right in front of her nose.
This was it. This was the end.
Outside the canal boat she heard a dog barking. It was the first since she was fifteen. It was a beautiful sound. She was happy to have heard it before she died.
The frosted window in the cabin darkened as the dog passed.
If she died. She felt a sudden spring of hope.
Where there were dogs, there were owners. Owners who could get her out of this.
Maggie jumped up and launched herself across the boat. Her head thudded into the plastic window. She turned to the side to keep Max from slipping from her grasp, then banged her head into the window again.
‘Help!’ she screamed through the gag, although the words came out as a muffled shout. ‘Wearrhg!’
The man jumped forward and clapped his hand over her mouth. He twisted her head savagely to the side and held the knife to her throat. She felt like her neck might break.
‘Quiet!’ he hissed. ‘You stay fucking quiet. I’m going to enjoy killing you. It’s your own fault. You’re too much trouble.’
Maggie looked up at the window from the corner of her eye, waiting for it to darken as someone walked back.
There was nothing.
PC Oliver Reid
Reid heard a thud and stopped a few feet past the boat. Probably just the man he’d seen putting something away.
The man. There was something odd about him. Reid pictured him, tying the boat to a mooring then – with a glance at Reid – climbing aboard.
There’d been no friendly wave, or call of ‘good evening’, which was typical of canal boaters.
And the man was wearing sunglasses, which was odd, because the sun was setting and he was moored in the shade of a large oak tree.
There was another thud from the boat.
Reid whistled softly. Benjy ran up to him.
‘Come on, boy,’ he said. ‘Let’s take a look.’
He turned, and walked back towards the boat. At his heel, Benjy barked.
Maggie
The window darkened again. There was barely the hint of a shadow, but it was there. She pulled Max tighter against her. The knife was sharp against her throat.
There was a knock on the hatch.
The man held his hand tighter over her mouth.
‘Hello?’ he said. ‘Who is it?’
‘Just checking everything’s OK,’ a man’s voice said. ‘I heard a bang. Wondered whether you’d slipped.’
‘No, I’m fine. Dropped a kettle, that’s all. But thanks for asking.’
There was a pause. ‘Could I come in?’
‘No,’ the man said. ‘I don’t think so. My wife’s getting dressed.’
‘I can wait. I only want to help if there’s a problem.’
The man tensed. ‘It’s really OK,’ he said. ‘And to be honest, I don’t want you on my boat. I don’t know who you are. You could be anyone.’
‘Oh, I’m no one. A concerned citizen.’
‘If you don’t leave, I’m going to call the police.’ The man waited a second, then changed his tone, as though he was speaking to someone in the cabin with him. ‘Darling, could you pass my phone? I’ve had enough of this.’
He was going to do it, Maggie saw. He was going to get rid of this man and then move the boat somewhere else and then kill her and Max.
This was, without any question, her last chance.
She gripped Max’s big toe, pressed her nails into the skin, and dug in, hard.
His eyes flew open and he looked at her in shock. He opened his mouth and screamed. It was muffled by the gag, but it was still loud.
It was still a child screaming.
There was a bang on the hatch, then another. Someone started to shake it. The lock was weak and there was a splintering sound as it ripped open. A man’s face appeared against the light and looked at her, then the man, then Max.
‘Hold it right there,’ he said. ‘Police.’
The man had moved his hand from her mouth to her chin and lifted it, exposing her neck. He pressed the tip of the knife against it.
‘Stay there,’ he said. ‘Or I kill her.’
The man in the doorway – who’d said he was police, but was not wearing a uniform – shook his head.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said. ‘This is over. Put the knife down.’
The man drew the knife over her skin. She felt warm blood run down her neck and over her chest.
‘Jesus,’ the man in the doorway said. ‘You fucking fool.’
He stepped into the cabin and stood opposite the man.
‘My name is PC Oliver Reid. I—’
The man let go of her and lunged forward, slashing at the policeman with the knife. The PC dodged out of the way, then grabbed the man’s hand and bent it backwards at the wrist. There was a loud snap like a branch breaking and the man screamed.
Maggie backed away, holding Max, and watched as the policeman forced the man face down on the yellowing carpet.
‘Listen, mate,’ the policeman said. ‘I’m trained in this and you’re an old fella, so let’s be sensible, OK?’ He looked at Maggie. ‘Are you Maggie Cooper?’
She nodded. The policeman beckoned her towards him. He untied the gag, and, with the knife the man had held at her throat, cut through the rope binding her wrists and ankles.
‘And who’s this?’ he said.
‘My son. Max.’ It was the first time she had spoken to anyone other that Max, Seb, Leo or the man in over a decade. She could barely believe it was happening.
The policeman glanced at the man. ‘I see,’ he said. He nodded at a coil of green rope hanging on a hook by the sink. ‘Could you pass that to me?’
Maggie put Max down and got to her feet. As she did, the man twisted. There was another loud crack – something else breaking – and he screamed, but he managed to get on his back. He kicked the policeman hard in the stomach and, for a second, he was free.
It was enough. The man scrambled to his feet and grabbed Max, then clambered through the hatch and on to the deck of the boat.
Maggie
‘Max!’ Maggie shouted. ‘Max!’
The policeman jumped to his feet and followed the man outside. Maggie climbed out after him. She saw the man running down the towpath. She frowned. The policeman wasn’t chasing him. He was looking at the canal.
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Fuck it.’
And then he jumped into the muddy brown water.
Maggie looked over the side of the boat and saw why. Max was in the canal, coughing and spluttering. The man had thrown him overboard. She watched as the policeman picked him up.
She turned. The man was about fifty yards away, running as fast as
he could.
Which wasn’t very fast. He was limping badly. She looked at the policeman. Max was clinging to his neck, coughing.
‘Here,’ the policeman said, holding Max out. ‘Take him. I need to get after that bastard.’
‘No,’ Maggie said. ‘I’ll get him. I want him to know that after all these years, I still beat him.’
She made up the ground quickly. The man looked over his shoulder and tried to speed up, but it was pointless. She was much faster.
And then, without warning, he slowed to a walk.
A man and woman were walking towards him. They were in their late sixties, the man wearing a green tweed hat, white hair poking out from under it, the woman a quilted gilet. Each one of them was holding the hand of a small, blond-haired boy.
The man pointed at Maggie.
‘Help,’ he said. ‘She’s a thug. She’s tormenting me. Can you stop her?’
The man in the hat frowned. He stepped in front of the two small boys. ‘Stay back, Harry and George,’ he said. He looked at Maggie. ‘What’s going on here? What are you up to?’
Maggie thought for a moment about explaining, but she was suddenly too tired. This had to stop. And what the man had done to Max had given her an idea.
She lunged at the man and shoved him as hard as she could. He stumbled, and fell into the canal.
The woman gasped. ‘What on earth—’
A voice interrupted. ‘Everybody stay calm.’ Maggie turned. The policeman was walking up to them, Max in his arms. He handed him to Maggie. He was dripping wet. ‘Everything’s fine. I’m a police officer.’
The woman folded her arms. ‘What on earth is happening here?’
Maggie squeezed Max tight.
‘I’m Maggie Cooper,’ she said. ‘And this is Max.’ The black-and-white spaniel sniffed her knee. ‘Is this your dog?’ she said.
‘Yes. He’s called Benjy.’
Maggie put out a hand and the dog licked it. It felt wonderful.
‘Max,’ she said. ‘This is a dog.’
Maggie
She could see that Max was happier when they were alone in a room again. It was a room in the police station, and it had windows and a door that she could walk out of any time she liked, but it was at least a setting familiar to Max, and once they were in there he started to calm down.
He had found the activity – and it had been a whirl of police officers swarming over the boat and asking her questions then leading them to a police car – overwhelming. When the car started to move he began shaking, his eyes wide with fear. Maggie held him tight and whispered in his ear that everything would be OK.
And it would.
They were free.
They were out of the room.
The man – Best, she had heard them calling him – was gone from her life.
There was a knock on the door and a woman came in. She had short hair and bags under her eyes and was wearing a dark suit.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Can I sit down?’
Maggie nodded. She and Max were sitting on a couch and the woman took an armchair facing it. Next to Maggie was a table with two glasses of orange juice on it; she took one and for the first time since the man had taken her, she drank from a glass.
‘Would you like anything else?’ the woman asked. ‘Something to eat?’
Maggie shook her head. ‘No, thank you.’
‘OK. Well, let me know if you do.’ The woman clasped her hands in her lap. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Wynne. I’ve been working on your case for a long time and at some point I’m going to want to talk to you about what happened, but not now, and not until you’re ready. For now, we’re going to focus on getting you whatever you need.’
‘I want to see my mum and dad,’ Maggie said.
‘They’re on their way. We contacted them as soon as we found you and they’re coming. I think your brother is with them as well.’
Her mum and dad and brother. She’d thought of them so many times when she was in the room, wondered what they were doing, how they looked, if they were happy.
If they were even alive.
And now she was going to see them, and she couldn’t wait. Her stomach was a ball of nerves; it felt like the anticipation of every exam and every Christmas and every date all rolled into one.
‘Are they – are they OK?’ she said.
The door opened and a woman looked in. She nodded at the detective.
‘Well,’ DI Wynne said, and smiled. ‘You can find out for yourself. They’re here.’
Martin
They had been in this same place at the beginning.
In these corridors, in these rooms, meeting police and lawyers and journalists, their world collapsing around them.
It was here it had become clear they had lost Maggie. And now they were back.
She was back.
He had accepted long ago it would never happen. At first he had believed she would be found, then he had hoped she might be found, then he feared she wouldn’t be found, and finally he had accepted she was gone forever.
A PC, a man in his twenties, led them to a door.
‘This is the room,’ he said. ‘And I don’t know if this is the right word, but congratulations.’
Martin held Sandra’s hand in his left hand and James’s in his right.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
The PC opened the door.
She was sitting on a brown couch. Her feet were bare and she was wearing grey tracksuit bottoms and a black coat. She was thin, and very pale.
She was holding a little boy. He looked up at the noise, his eyes fearful.
She looked up.
Those blue eyes. They hadn’t changed. The light was still there.
She smiled, then her lips started to quiver and tears came to her eyes and she started to get to her feet and he ran across the room and they were hugging, all of them, Sandra, James, him and Maggie, the little boy, back together, a family again after so, so long.
‘Fruitcake,’ he said. ‘My little Fruitcake. I love you. I missed you.’
Maggie heaved with sobs. He held her to him again. He inhaled deeply. Despite what she’d been through, despite where she’d been, she smelled exactly as he remembered. He inhaled again.
He felt something kick him in the stomach. The boy started to cry.
‘Mummy,’ he said. ‘I want you, Mummy.’
Martin stepped back and looked at him. He kissed Maggie again.
‘Who’s this?’ he said.
‘This is Max,’ Maggie said. ‘My son.’
Sandra wiped tears from her eyes.
‘Hello, Max,’ she said. She put a hand on the back of his head. ‘He’s beautiful. He looks just like James did at that age.’
Max shrank away from her touch.
‘He’s not used to all these people,’ Maggie said. ‘He doesn’t know you’re his grandparents.’ She looked at James. ‘Or his uncle.’
‘He can take all the time he wants to get used to us,’ Martin said. ‘Let’s go home.’ He turned to DI Wynne. ‘If that’s OK?’
She smiled. ‘That’s fine. I’ll get Maggie some shoes. I think we have some trainers she can wear.’
She left the room. Martin looked at his wife and son and daughter and grandson and his heart swelled with love for them all.
He put his arms around his daughter. She pressed her face against his neck.
‘Welcome back, Fruitcake,’ he said. ‘Everything’s going to be OK, I promise. Better than OK. It’s going to be perfect.
Epilogue
Six months later
Maggie had chosen to wear bright colours for the funeral. There had been enough darkness in the last twelve years to last her a lifetime, and she felt it was right to be dressed in red or green or yellow or whatever she wanted.
The two small coffins were at the front of the funeral parlour. She did not want a church funeral; she had never been much interested in religion and whatever vague faith she might have had,
had been extinguished in the room. No god she wanted to worship would do that to her.
Or Max.
Or Seb, or Leo.
They had found their remains in Delamere Forest. The man – Colin Best, he was called – had refused to divulge the whereabouts of Seb and Leo’s bodies at first; but then another prisoner had broken into his cell – it had been left unlocked in an unfortunate oversight – and the next day Best said he was ready to tell the police where the bodies were.
The police exhumed them, and they were not the only bodies they found. There was a pet cemetery of people’s dogs and cats, along with the body of a woman in her twenties. The police thought it might be a prostitute who had gone missing in the late nineties.
She sat at the front, and looked at the two coffins. They were closed – there was not much left of Seb and Leo – and she was glad. She preferred to remember them as they were. She had described them to James and her parents, although they would never know what their other two grandsons looked like. There were no photos. That was one of the many things that Colin Best had taken from them and from her.
Her dad sat on her left, his hand on her arm. He was exactly as she remembered him. Warm, thoughtful, loving, and still telling his terrible dad jokes. There was a wariness to him that was new – he didn’t let her go anywhere alone, which she was going to have to talk to him about – but other than that he was the dad she remembered.
Mum had been ill, it turned out, and you could see it in the lines on her face. According to the doctors she was fine now, but it had left its mark.
And James. Her little brother, James. He was over his addiction, although she still saw the hunger in his eyes from time to time.
Max was – incredibly – fine. At first he had asked about the room and the man all the time, but that had gradually slowed until he didn’t mention it at all. He still saw a child psychiatrist; she told Maggie that, although he had some developmental delays, they would resolve themselves on their own and he would grow up a normal, well-adjusted child. Maggie marvelled on a daily basis at how easily he had adapted. He went to a pre-school, had a group of friends, watched television, and sat, for hours on end, watching his grandad build a huge, electric train set for him.