Page 49 of Seven Days

‘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.’

‘You saw them? Where?’

‘In his house. His parents were out and I watched them go inside. They closed the curtains in an upstairs window, but they didn’t lock the door. I let myself in and heard them. Heard their grunts.’ He shuddered in disgust. ‘I went to look, so I could be sure.’ He breathed in deeply. ‘And there they were. The door was ajar. I watched them. It was disgusting.’

Maggie closed her eyes as tightly as she could. This man had spied on her mum and her boyfriend, crept into a house and watched them have sex. And now she was in some prison he’d made. This was more fucked up than she had imagined.

He tapped her on the shoulder and she opened her eyes. He leaned forward. ‘You are the same, Maggie. You have the same light. And I saw the fate coming to claim you, and I could not let it. Once you were with that boy, I knew I had to save you. And now you are safe. Your light will never go out.’

‘Me and Kevin are friends,’ she said. ‘That’s all.’

‘For now. But he would do the same to you as that animal did to your mother. And I had to keep you safe. Keep your light shining.’