Seven Days(78)

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.