March 7, 5.27 p.m.
The barking of the dogs announced his return. Abby’s hands were handcuffed behind her back and her mouth was gagged with a leather restraint. The floor of the small room was covered in a thin mattress. The room, as far as she could tell, was no more than a closet. There was not enough space to lie flat. Abby could either lie on her side with her knees bent or sit up against the walls and stretch out her legs. She was wearing the same tartan skirt and T-shirt she’d put on eight days earlier. To one side of the mattress on the thin strip of bare concrete floor was a green plastic bedpan.
There was no direct light in the room, but the wall didn’t quite reach the corrugated roof and light from outside filtered in. Not much, but it helped. Complete darkness would’ve been harder to cope with. Strange as it was, you were grateful for the smallest things. A thin mattress, a chink of light, a bedpan.
Sometimes Abby imagined the things that he might do to her. She let the horror snake around her and leave her cold with sweat. But he hadn’t killed her or raped her. Yet. She attempted to convince herself that this was because he was trying to get money out of her folks. For days she tried to work out why the smell of his cologne was familiar. It was a strong musky scent, but she couldn’t put a place or face on the smell. It was driving her crazy.
She tried to keep her mind from getting lost in the stupefying boredom by having imaginary conversations with friends, with her mom and dad, her grandparents. She visualized how they’d all react when she got out. How they’d be, what they’d say. She imagined the warm hugs, the wide eyes and big smiles, tainted with tears. She’d try to remember details from every part of her home, then she’d count the threads in the mattress and then recount them in different multiples. She had to keep her head straight. She was lucky she had her music, and in her head, she played note by note, practicing with imagined hands on an imagined saxophone.
Getting some kind of exercise was difficult, but there was enough space to stand and she spent some time each day standing and sitting, pressing her legs against the wall, turning, squatting, rising. It all helped to give some structure to the time.
On the wall she marked the days by dragging her cuffs in a single line across the brick. It was important to keep watch of time. The worst thing was the food. So little. Each day her abductor pushed a piece of bread, a piece of cheese and a cup of water through the flap. She would push out the bedpan. One little ritual.
She had tried to speak in the beginning, during the feeding times, when the restraint was removed. ‘I’m missing my dad, you know. He’ll be trying to solve this. Schoolwork will be piling up. My name is Abby Goldenberg.’
But he stopped it. Insisted on silence. The flap would shut and she would hear him move about, typing, changing clothes.
On the fourth day, she turned the mattress over and spent hours with her hands and teeth, pulling at a small tear. She had the idea that if she could get a rag of the mattress, by pressing her back to one wall and her feet to the other, she might be able to lift herself up to the roof and somehow push out a flag. It was not going to save her, but it might cause some attention and then she could hammer at the door with her feet. She’d tried that for hours already, but stopped out of frustration, and now tried it only every few hours. The thing was – her abductor was regular. He came at the same time each day. An hour or so before the sun went down. So she knew when it was safe to try to attract attention.
She was very cold. At night, all the time. Never anything but cold. She could hear cars and trucks and in the quiet hours, she could hear birds. They sometimes landed on the top of the roof and she listened to their footsteps.
The dogs barked outside. She felt terrible panic and the instant retching of her guts. The outer door opened and he was inside. The dogs sniffed and ran about the room as they did every time. Their claws scratched on the hard floor, they wagged their tails and bumped into things. There were lots of them and they sniffed at her door. She tried to count them, but there were too many.
The dogs were shooed out. The flap opened.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Can I come out . . . just for a second? Just for one second? Please let me. You’ve got to let me stretch my legs. You’ll never guess, it’s my sax exam tomorrow. If I don’t practice, I’ll fail. I want to talk to you. I understand why people do things. It might be good to talk about it.’
There was no reply. The bread and cheese were pushed through the flap. She used her feet to push the bedpan out. ‘For God’s sake, stop doing this,’ she said in a whisper. The bedpan scraped across the ground.
Then his hand grabbed her foot. She froze. His skin was cold. His fingers closed around her ankle. She could hear him breathing. Don’t react, she was telling herself. Don’t get angry. ‘I’ve been thinking about my mom,’ she said. ‘Missing her. She’s not a great mom. She’s a bit . . . selfish. You have to forgive people when they disappoint you, don’t you? Everyone’s got a reason to do what they do, it’s just we don’t always understand what those reasons are. Everyone’s a mystery, right?’
The hand released her and she pulled her foot back through the flap. She was gulping for air.
‘My name’s Abby,’ she said. ‘I’m just sixteen. I’m scared. I miss my home. That’s all, mister. I just miss my mom, my dad, my nana, my friends.’
There was no reply. The flap shot up and was locked.