Seven Days(80)

He’d lost more than Maggie that day. He’d woken up a fourteen-year-old boy who messed around with his friends and wondered if he’d ever kiss a girl and thought the world was basically a fun, safe place and he’d gone to bed a fourteen-year-old boy who looked at the world with fear.

He’d gone to bed scared of what was out there, and the fear had never gone away.

Until he took heroin.

So that was his choice. A life lived in fear, the ghost of his sister – who he had loved, had idolized – forever tormenting him, or this. This squalid, filthy flat.

He picked up a needle and straightened his arm. He looked at the vein, anticipated the prick and rush and bliss.

He smiled. Finally, this was the end.





Maggie


She opened the door and looked up the stairs. There was a square of yellow light at the top. She stepped on the first step and glanced over her shoulder.

Max was on the floor and the man was running towards the door.

‘Stop!’ he screamed. ‘Come back here!’

She ran up the stairs. They emerged from a rectangular hole on to the concrete floor of a garage. Next to the hole was a heavy piece of wood, the source of the scraping sound she had heard so often. To her right was a white door. There was a window on her left; rain ran down it.

Rain.

Actual rain.

The garage door was closed, so she ran to the white door. It must lead to the house and then to the outside world.

She grabbed the handle. It was unlocked; she stepped through into a kitchen. On the counter was a phone. It was a flip phone, modern, sleek and grey. She’d not seen many of those before. Still, she knew how to use one. She grabbed it. As soon as she was away from the man she’d call the police.

The man. She realized it was quiet behind her. She looked back. The door to the garage was open and she could see the stairs that led to the room. The wooden cover was still off.

Where was the man? Was he still in the room? Was he hurting Max? Or was he hiding in the garage?

She took a step towards the door. Slowly, she pushed it wide open.

The garage was empty.

Which meant the man was with Max. He was waiting down there. She opened the flip phone and dialled 999. Once she had done that and the police were on the way she could go back down and protect him. She would be able to do that for long enough to free them.

The phone rang once, twice.

‘Which service? Police, Ambulance, or Fire?’

‘Police.’

She waited for someone to answer.

There was a loud bang. Maggie turned to her left; the man was standing in the back door, his face contorted in anger. He was holding a shovel in his hand.

And she realized her mistake.

There was another door in the garage that led out to the garden. He’d gone through that and got the shovel. There was no sign of Max.

‘You stupid little bitch,’ he said, spitting out each word. ‘Why did you have to do this?’ He stalked to his right, blocking Maggie’s path out of the kitchen. He lifted the shovel, the blade level with his ruined face.

There was a voice from the phone. It was brisk and official. ‘Hello. What can I help you with?’

The man charged towards her. Maggie held the phone to her ear.

‘Maggie Cooper,’ she said. ‘Maggie—’

And then the shovel hit her hand and the phone flew to the floor. The man picked it up and closed it. He raised the shovel again.

‘You stupid, stupid little girl,’ he said.





DI Wynne


DI Wynne sat at her desk. Her first Saturday back at her old job and she was in the office. DS Chan was at the next desk.

‘So,’ he said. ‘It didn’t work out down south?’

‘Not exactly,’ she said. ‘So here I am.’

‘What happened?’

Wynne pursed her lips. ‘This and that.’

‘Sounds pretty serious.’

‘Look,’ Wynne said. ‘It wasn’t for me. That’s all.’

There was a knock on the door. A uniformed officer came in.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘You worked the case of that missing girl, right?’

‘Which one?’

‘Maggie Cooper.’

Wynne sat up in her chair. ‘Yes. What about it?’

‘We received a notification from dispatch. They had a pretty weird call come in. Someone rang 999. It was a girl, and all she said was “Maggie Cooper”, before the line went dead. The dispatcher recognized the name and flagged it to us.’

‘Do they know whose phone it was from?’

‘Yes. A mobile. Belongs to someone called Best. Man in his sixties. Known to us.’

Wynne stared at the PC.

‘Still at 7 Dover Street?’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because,’ Wynne said. ‘I know that bastard from years ago.’





Martin


Martin sat in the waiting room. He had a magazine – it was about golf, and had a picture of someone he didn’t know holding a trophy he didn’t recognize on the front – on his lap, but he wasn’t reading it. He couldn’t. He’d only picked it up to keep his hands busy.

He flicked through a few pages, then put it back on the table. He got to his feet and walked to the window. It looked over the car park. He searched for his red Audi. An S4. Fast. Expensive, but not too flash. Great engineering. A good use of the money he had.