Seven Days(36)

‘Is this what you need?’

He prodded the boxes towards her with his toe and she picked them up.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘These are fine.’

‘I had to go far away to buy them,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want anyone to see me. That’s why it took a long time.’

She nodded. She pictured him in a supermarket in some out-of-town retail park, a cap pulled low on his head, buying the tampons in silence then hurrying to his car and driving back on the motorway. For the first time she wondered what would happen to her if something happened to him? What if a truck hit him and he was killed? How long would it be before someone found her? Presumably wherever she was was well hidden, so it could be days. Weeks.

Months.

He nodded at the food he had brought earlier. It was untouched.

‘You’re not hungry?’

She shook her head.

‘You need to eat.’

Maggie looked away. She didn’t need a lecture on nutrition from him. ‘Like you care,’ she said, aware she sounded like a surly teenager.

She wasn’t too bothered. She wasn’t normally a surly teenager, but she had a pass this time. She had plenty to be surly about.

‘Of course I care,’ he said.

‘No,’ Maggie said. ‘If you cared about me you wouldn’t keep me in here.’

‘That’s why I keep you in here. Don’t you see that? I told you. I have to keep you safe.’

‘How is this safe?’

‘Because it’s not out there.’ He pointed above his head. ‘Out there will corrupt you, Maggie. And you must not be corrupted. I can’t let that happen to you.’

‘It won’t,’ Maggie said. ‘I promise. I’m a normal teenager, really.’

‘You are not a normal teenager. You’re special. Like I told you before, I’ve been following you Maggie, keeping an eye on you until the time came to save you.’

Maggie shrank back on the bed. This was crazy.

‘I’ve been watching over you. Like a guardian angel. Ever since I saw you. You never knew, but I was there.’

‘How long,’ she said, gesturing around the room, ‘how long have you been planning this?’

‘The room?’ the man said. ‘I built this years ago, I knew I’d need it one day – for someone – and I was right. Because you started to go down the wrong path, and I had to step in.’

‘What do you mean, the wrong path?’ Maggie said, her head spinning. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘That boy,’ the man said. ‘He was taking you in the wrong direction.’

‘Kevin?’ Maggie said. ‘He was – he was only a friend. I was going to break up with him!’

‘He was a dangerous influence,’ the man said. ‘And he was the first of many. There would have been others, I could tell. You’re susceptible to men, Maggie. It runs in your family. I couldn’t let it happen again.’

‘Again?’ Maggie said. ‘Kevin was my first boyfriend. There’s no again.’

‘I’m not talking about you,’ the man said. ‘I’m talking about your mother.’





3


‘My mum?’ Maggie said. She felt dizzy. She had assumed that the man had seen her alone and taken the opportunity to kidnap her. All the stuff he’d said when she was first here, about rescuing her and keeping her safe, was his way of justifying it.

But now it seemed there was more to the story.

A lot more.

Maggie blinked, trying to focus. ‘What has my mum got to do with this?’

‘Everything,’ the man said. ‘I failed her. She, too, was special, but I did not do what I should have done. I wasn’t ready. I won’t make the same mistake again.’

He said it emphatically, as though proud of the strength of his resolve.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘How do you know Mum?’

‘I was her teacher,’ the man said. ‘But not merely any teacher. It was obvious from the start that she was special and I was put there to save her. She stood out from the others. There was something’ – he looked up – ‘luminous about her. A light from within. I saw it – others didn’t, but I did – and I tried to tend it, but I did not see the dangers. I underestimated them. I thought she would be able to resist temptation, but it turned out she was weak. Delicate. And before I could do anything, I’d lost her.’

This wasn’t making any sense. ‘What do you mean, “lost her”?’ Maggie said.

‘She had a boyfriend. Like you.’

‘So?’ Maggie said. ‘That’s normal.’

He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Once she’d been with him – in that way – she was lost to me. I needed her to be perfect.’ He wrinkled his nose in disgust. ‘She let him do it to her. I don’t think she wanted to – she was misguided – but he led her astray. I watched it happen. He ruined her.’

Maggie felt she was losing her grip on the conversation. ‘How do you know they weren’t just friends?’

‘Because they were doing it, Fruitcake. She was letting him. I saw them.’