Читать книгу Seven Days - Alex Lake - Страница 24

Martin Cooper opened his eyes. He looked at his watch; it was almost four thirty in the morning, which meant he’d been asleep for around two hours.

That was all he was going to get.

It had been two nights. He rubbed his eyes. They felt raw. The night Maggie disappeared he hadn’t slept at all and, with tonight’s two restless hours, he could feel the exhaustion building up. It made no difference, though. There was no way he would be able to sleep again.

And he didn’t want to. He wanted to find his daughter.

He got out of bed and crossed the landing to her room. He opened the door and looked inside, half-expecting, half-hoping, to see a shape in her bed, sleeping off the effects of wherever she’d been.

It was empty.

On his way back from the park the night she disappeared he’d called the police and reported she was missing.

We’ll put out an alert, the officer he spoke to said, but she’s probably with a friend. More than likely she’ll turn up in the morning.

Except he’d spoken to all her friends and she wasn’t with them, and they didn’t know of anyone else she would have been with, any boy or man she’d mentioned.

So he and Sandra and James and his brother, Tony, and his friend from work, Reid, and Freddie, his neighbour, had spent the day looking for her. Between them they’d gone to every pub in Warrington and Manchester and Liverpool and Wigan and St Helens and anywhere else they could think of, and shown them a photo of Maggie.

None of them remembered seeing her. Quite a few said they couldn’t be sure.

Busy night, mate. Lots of people in here. Have you tried the cops?

He had. They hadn’t done much. They were looking for her, but they still thought she’d show up.

He’d lost track of the number of times he’d heard someone say most of the time teenagers do.

Most of the time wasn’t good enough. And Martin knew his little girl. She hadn’t gone off with a new boyfriend, enjoying herself while her parents worried. Some teenagers would – and maybe they were the ones that showed up – but not Mags. Not his Fruitcake.

If she was missing there was a reason, and he needed to find her.

He hadn’t, though. He came home, eventually, at one a.m., flat and exhausted and terrified. He’d slept, for those two hours.

And now he was awake. He didn’t know when he would ever be able to sleep again.