Page 21 of Seven Days

Today she might get out of here. She pictured the newspapers: MISSING GIRL FOUND DECADES LATER. She’d be reunited with her parents. In her mind they were the same as when she had been abducted, but, like the man, they’d be older too. Fifty-three now. She tried to imagine what they looked like. Would Dad be bald? Mum grey? Were they still together?

Still alive?

And James would be twenty-six. He might have kids. She wondered what music he listened to, what books he read, what job he did. He’d have cast his first vote, lost his virginity, gone to university, all of it a mystery to her. She didn’t even know who the prime minister was. Was it still Blair? Surely not. Probably someone from a whole new generation of politicians. Maybe the country was at war; maybe it had adopted the euro. She knew nothing.

She closed her eyes. She’d missed so much. It was weird, though: without the man there’d have been no Seb, Leo or Max, and she couldn’t imagine life without them. Especially without Max.

She looked at him. He was sleeping on the mattress, his mouth parted. She picked up the calendar, took her pencil and crossed out another day.

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1

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9101112131415

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30

The sight and smell of the breakfast made her feel sick.

But she couldn’t have eaten anyway. She was too on edge. Because today she was going to get out of here.

She pushed the breakfast away.

3

She had a plan. It was simple, but she thought it could work.

When he came, she would attack him.

Which was a start, but it still wouldn’t be enough. She’d learned that the hard way before. He was older now, though, and weaker; she was strong from the press-ups and planks and other exercises. It would be different.

Even so, she was still five-three and about eight and a half stone, and he was six-foot-three and probably sixteen stone. She knew from the times he had lain on top of her how heavy that was, and how hard it was to move that kind of weight.

She’d get only one chance to hit him and it would have to work, or he’d overpower her and take Max anyway and repeat the awful, awful punishment he had meted out last time.

So that one hit had to work. She had to maximize its effect. And for that she needed one more element, an element she thought she might have figured out.

4

The man opened the door. He was holding a tray, and he locked the door, his attention on the key.

When he turned to Maggie, he frowned.

‘What?’ he said. ‘What are you doing?’

Maggie was sitting on the mattress. She smiled at him. Max was sleeping on the floor, his head on a pillow; it had been a struggle to get him to go to sleep.

She stood up. The man’s gaze moved up and down her body.

Her naked body.

‘Put the tray down,’ she said, in the closest approximation she could manage of a sultry tone. ‘I’ve been thinking about you.’