‘But you didn’t hear his voice?’
‘No. Only her, calling to him.’
‘Did it seem like a normal house to you?’
Lucy pulls her bottom lip in, thinking. ‘Yes, maybe. I got a look at the room when I did the video. It was a plain box-type room. Wooden floors, wallpaper. A little camp bed – I didn’t sleep – and a desk chair.’
‘Wallpaper? Flowers?’
‘Yes.’
‘Anything else? A window?’
‘No. No window. The door to the room was made of cheap wood. That’s all I got.’
‘Tell me about the woman.’
‘When she was there, on the second afternoon, the blindfold was a little loose. I worked it off on the bedpost. I put my eye to the gap between the door and the door frame, and I could look out on to a corridor, a hallway really. It had his shoes in it, brown flip-flops. Carpet. Nothing else. But then she walked past, just once. I had the tape on, so I couldn’t make a noise, of course, but I banged on the door, and she swivelled her head to look. I just got one glimpse of her through the gap. I had my face pressed right up to it, so I saw her. Dark hair, big eyes.’
‘You’d recognize her?’
‘Yes,’ Lucy says, somewhat carefully. ‘I think I would. She definitely heard the noise, though probably didn’t see me. Then she rushed back into the main bit of the house, andI heard her go. But then – OK,’ Lucy says, ‘she called up to him, said, “Am I your daughter, or what?” I think she was mocking him.’
‘She’s his daughter,’ Simone breathes, incredulous that a kidnapper of girls could have one himself.
‘Right.’
‘I see.’
‘And, when she said that to him, her voice changed,’ Lucy continues. ‘Softened. You know? The way it does with relatives.’
Simone’s eyes are wet. She’s so wise, her daughter, but she’s also experienced something so awful. Lucy scoots closer and places her hand over her mother’s. Simone blinks. ‘I told him, at one point, that I was thirsty, and he came into the room and took my cup away, didn’t bring it back.’
Simone feels like she’s been slapped. ‘That’s …’
‘She said to him, the daughter, she said that she had to get back to her house, but that she’d be sure to stay inside.’
‘Huh. That’s weird,’ Simone says. ‘That was the second day?’
‘Right. The first he left me blindfolded there on the floor all day, apart from when he made me film the video. No food,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t have eaten even if he had offered.’
‘I see.’
‘And then I was allowed on this horrible old bed. Mattress like a block of wood. And then, the next day, evening, he must have known I’d got the blindfold off because he gets the phone to read out that I have to face the wall with my eyes closed before he comes in. He put me in the car again. I couldn’t hear any street noise; no neighbours I’m guessing. Some of the shock and the adrenaline or whatever had worn off by then. And I did think:Is he taking me somewhere to die?And it’s weird but – when you’re in it … you don’t feel thefear. You just start to face it. He took me to – somewhere, and then handed me over to someone else, someone who felt taller, who then drove me to you.’
Simone nods, but, inside, her spirit is crushed. They will never be able to find or identify this man, this criminal mastermind, and Lucy will never be the same again.
‘And I just thought,Well, at least it’ll be quick. He’d shoot me. I don’t know,’ Lucy says, her shoulders rising and then falling so slowly Simone wonders if it’s more of a breath than a sigh or a shrug.
‘And then you came,’ she says suddenly to Simone, looking directly at her.
‘I came.’
‘I can’t believe I shot at that car.’
‘I know.’
‘I can’t believe I hit it. I didn’t even know how to …’ She looks at Simone and, once again, they are thinking exactly the same thing. Simone didn’t even know she knew how to do it, either.
