Читать книгу Seven Days - Alex Lake - Страница 25

Next to him, Sandra rolled on to her side. Her breathing quickened and she sighed.

‘Are you awake?’ he said.

‘Yes. I barely slept.’

‘Me neither.’ He looked at his watch again. ‘It’s four thirty-seven.’

Their bedroom door opened slowly. James stood in the frame. ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he said. ‘I was waiting for you to wake up.’

‘You should have come in,’ Martin said. He felt a surge of love for his son. ‘Anytime you need me, I’m here.’

‘It’s early.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Dad,’ James said. ‘Can we go and look for her?’

Martin replaced the nozzle in the petrol pump and walked across the garage forecourt to pay. The car had been full the day before, but he had driven every street and park and country road for miles around. Martin had marked the ones they had driven on a map with a fluorescent marker and there were very few left. He had driven slowly, James looking out of one side, him looking out of the other. At every open pub or newsagent or café or clothes shop or place that looked like it might have attracted a fifteen-year-old they had stopped and shown photos of Maggie.

No one had seen her.

He scanned the shop as he entered, in case Maggie was inside buying chewing gum or a magazine or a packet of cigarettes. He hoped she was. He hoped he found his fifteen-year-old daughter buying cigarettes, because then he would know she was safe.

Because then he would have her back, and he could sleep and eat and breathe and live again.

He handed his card to the shop assistant.

‘Number six,’ he said. As she rang it up, he put the photos of Maggie – one a close-up of her face taken a couple of weeks ago, the other her school portrait – on the counter.

‘You haven’t seen this girl, have you?’ he asked.

The woman – about his age and with a pinched, smoker’s face – gave him a suspicious look.

‘No,’ she said. ‘She missing?’

‘Yes. She’s my daughter.’

The looked softened into one of sympathy.

‘Oh. How long’s she been gone?’

‘Two nights.’

Just saying it made him feel sick with worry. It had a similar effect on the woman.

‘Two nights is two nights too long,’ she said. ‘Hold on. I’ll be right back.’

She picked up the photos and walked through a door into an office. A few minutes later she came back holding a sheaf of paper.

‘Photocopies,’ she said. ‘I can hand them out, see if anyone recognizes her. Give me your number and I’ll make sure we let you know.’

Martin wrote down his phone number, in part glad of the help, and in part terrified.

Because it suddenly felt all the more real.