Seven Days(87)

Leaving her alone to try and think what the man was planning.

Clearly, he was hoping to hide. The police would have come to the house and worked out what had been going on, and they would be looking for the man everywhere. The boat was perfect; nobody would think anything of another canal cruiser moored up for the night. He could keep them here as long as he wanted. She might be on a boat instead of in a cellar, but other than that her situation had not changed at all.

She lay down, Max asleep on her chest.

There was a bump and the rocking of the boat ceased. The hatch opened, and the man stepped into the cabin. He was wearing a hat and sunglasses.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘You went and messed it all up.’

Maggie gestured to the gag. Take it out and we can talk.

The man gave a sardonic laugh. ‘And have you start screaming? I can’t trust you, Maggie. I thought I could, but I was wrong.’ He pressed his palms together and held his forefingers against his mouth. ‘You know, I thought, at first, that we could have a normal life together. Man and wife. Once you understood what I’d done for you, I was convinced you would see past my age and see that I was a good person. That I had your best interests at heart. Think about it for a second, you ungrateful bitch. Have you any idea how much work it was to excavate that basement? And you threw it back in my face. You were too ungrateful to see it. And too stupid. Too self-absorbed.’ He folded his arms. ‘But then, this. How could you do it?’

He took off his sunglasses. His eye was gone, a gaping red hole where it had been.

He winced in pain. Maggie was amazed he could stand it, but then he was not the same as other people. He was insane in ways she barely comprehended.

‘How could you?’ he said. ‘How could you do this to me? All I wanted was to take care of you, and this is how you repay me?’

Maggie stared at his eye. It didn’t repulse her; she wished she had done the same to the other one.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘There’s no way back after this. An argument I could have forgiven. Even an attack. But not this. This is too much. I’m afraid it’s over between us, Maggie.’

She tilted her head. Over? What was over?

‘If I can’t have you, nobody can.’

He reached up to a shelf by his head and picked something up.

It was a knife, the blade long and sharp.

‘You brought this on yourself, Maggie, you really did. I can’t go home now – the police will have been there – and I can’t keep you two with me. If I’m to survive, I need to be on my own. I could let you go, but you know about my boat and you can’t be trusted. So I’m afraid I have no option.’

He looked at the knife, his eyes running up and down the blade.

‘I’ve thought it through and I have no choice.’

Maggie kept her eye on the knife. She knew now what was coming, but that was fine. Death was better than the life she’d had.

She nodded, and shrugged.





Wynne


Wynne turned to DS Chan. ‘How far can they be? Those boats are pretty slow, right?’

‘Four miles an hour,’ Chan replied. ‘Maybe five.’

‘And Best has two or three hours’ start? So they’re within ten or fifteen miles. We need to look inside every boat within twenty miles of here. Get a map of the canal and get officers on bikes pedalling every foot of them.’

Chan nodded. ‘He may have ditched the boat, too,’ he said. ‘He could be back on the road.’

‘We’ll keep that search ongoing,’ Wynne replied. ‘Either way, we’ll find the boat and we’ll track the bastard down from there.’





PC Oliver Reid


PC Oliver Reid had come off his shift at six a.m. and slept until one in the afternoon. Then he’d spent a few hours watching his son’s rugby match, and arranged to meet a friend for a pint after he walked his dog, Benjy.

The springer spaniel ran ahead of him, sniffing in the hedges and picking up this trail or that before moving on. Reid lived in a small village south of Warrington, and his dog walks took him deep into the Cheshire countryside. It always surprised him how remote it seemed. Liverpool was thirty miles to the west and Manchester thirty miles to the east, but out here felt like the middle of nowhere.

Up ahead, a humpback bridge crossed the Bridgewater canal. He normally picked up the canal towpath at the bridge and followed it back towards the village. As he approached, his phone rang. He glanced at the screen.

It was the station.

‘Olly,’ it was Pete Faro, the duty sergeant. ‘You still sober?’

‘I’m tempted to say no,’ Reid replied. ‘In about an hour I planned not to be. I’m assuming you need something?’

‘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.’