The man kneels down. He puts his face very close to hers. She can smell his breath. He says, ‘Are you hungry?’
She shakes her head.
‘Thirsty?’
She nods.
‘I’ll get you some water in a minute. Okay?’
She nods.
‘Now. I know that right now you’re scared. Last night was very upsetting for all of us, wasn’t it?’
She doesn’t know what to say. She says, ‘That’s all right.’
‘Good girl,’ he says. ‘I know this isn’t the nicest bedroom in the world, but you’ll soon get used to it.’
Mia swallows. Her throat is dry and shaky. She says, ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well. This is your home now.’
‘I don’t want it to be my home.’
‘I know you feel like that now,’ says the man. ‘And you’ll keep feeling like that for a little while. But soon it’ll change, and it’ll get so you like it here. And once you’ve grown to like it a little bit, I’ll let you come upstairs, watch some TV. Do you like TV?’
‘Yes,’ says Mia.
‘Good,’ says the man. Then he gives her a look like he loves her and he’s glad she’s home. It makes her wet herself again. The dark pool spreads all over the blanket.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ says the man. ‘It’ll dry.’
He shuts the door and Mia hears the screeching slide of the bolt.
She sits in silence, clasping the edge of the bed. She’s too scared to move. She can’t even think. When she turns her head she sees the bookshelf in the corner and its meaning wells up inside her until the thought is too big for her head.
An hour later, or five minutes, he comes back. She hears the door under the stairs opening, his footsteps on the concrete steps. Then the frightful shriek of the rusty bolt and the hinge and he stands in the doorway.
In one hand he’s got a bucket.
He passes it to her. He says, ‘This is for you to do your business in. But if you look extra closely, there’s a present inside.’
She stares into the blue plastic bucket. Inside it is a tiny rabbit. It’s trembling. She reaches in to lift it out. It turns in the bucket and bites her finger.
She withdraws sharply. She considers the baby rabbit, cowering and terrified in its circular blue prison.
‘Just leave him in there for a bit,’ says the man. ‘Then tip over the bucket. Let him have a sniff round and get used to the place. Once he’s done that, you can be best friends. Would you like that?’
She gives the man a nod because she’s too scared not to.
‘Smile,’ says the man. ‘I just got you a present.’
She smiles.
‘That’s good,’ says the man. ‘What are you going to call it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘It’s got to have a name,’ says the man.
Mia can’t think of any names. She can’t think of any words at all. But she wants to please the man. She glances in desperation at the bookshelf.
‘Peter,’ she says.
‘Excellent,’ says the man. Then he says, ‘Well, you and Peter have had a long night. Why don’t you take forty winks?’
‘Okay.’
‘If you need to do a wee or a poo,’ he says, ‘do it in that bucket, okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘I’ll get you a proper toilet tomorrow. Ones like they have in caravans. That’ll be nice.’
‘Yes,’ she says.
‘Good,’ says the man. ‘Goodnight, then.’
‘Goodnight.’
The man hesitates in the doorway, seems to chew something over. Then he says, ‘Do you like babies?’
‘Yes,’ says Mia.
‘Do you want lots of babies, when you’ve grown up?’
‘Yes,’ says Mia.
‘Good,’ says the man.
He closes and bolts the door and walks upstairs and closes and bolts that door, too.
And in here it stinks of mouldy blankets and damp air and those old books, the smell of age and decay in them. Mia knows she will never open those books, not even if she’s so bored she wants to die, because she knows that many children have leafed through those books in the before time. There may be drawings in there in another childish hand and if there are she couldn’t bear it.
Mia sits on the bed, looking down at the rabbit. Its nose is twitching, super-alert to its surroundings.
Gently, Mia tips the bucket onto its side. Then she inches back on the bed and puts her back to the cold wall and tries not to move or breathe and just concentrates on the rabbit.
After a long, long time the bucket moves slightly on the cold floor. She can see the rabbit’s nose, twitching away at the edge.
Then the rabbit pokes out its head and looks around. Its eyes are liquid brown.
The rabbit bolts from the bucket so quickly Mia gives out a little scream and jumps.
The rabbit bolts under the bed into the corner. It huddles there, terror-stricken.
Mia knows not to disturb it. She knows to give it time. She begins, patiently, to pick the scab on her knee. She sings herself a song. It’s a happy song that makes her think of happy times. But thinking of happy times is like being kicked in the tummy. She doesn’t know what to do.
Mia shuts down. She curls into a ball on the bed. She puts her thumb in her mouth.
Sucking it, she falls asleep.
CHAPTER 22
Zoe’s propped up in bed, feeling jetlagged and half real. She’s been awake all night, trying not to think of it.
She gives up, reaches for her laptop. Navigates to a news website.
Suspected kidnapper of Mia Dalton, she hears. Murder of Dalton family. Second home invasion in two days. No comment on suspected link to the killer of Sarah and Tom Lambert and the kidnapping of baby Emma Lambert. London stunned. DCI John Luther.
And there’s John. Tiny on the laptop screen. Stomping away from a drizzly crime scene, a big man with a big walk, buttoning his coat.
Zoe’s phone is charging at the wall. She grabs it and calls John.
‘DCI Luther,’ he says.
‘John,’ she says. ‘It’s me.’
There’s a pause. He ends it by saying, ‘Not now.’ He hangs up.
John has been many things before: distracted, evasive, depressed, wild. But he’s never been dismissive.
He always says how remarkable he finds it, that people are more polite to strangers than to the people they love. He strives to be courteous to her, takes pride in it, and she loves that about him.
Loved that about him.
That’s when Zoe knows they really are done. When John slips into the past tense.
Luther steps out of the station and hurries across the street. Howie’s leaning against his car, arms crossed, waiting in the rain.
