Going missing made Tash and me popular. Sack loads of mail arrived at our houses: letters, cards, poems and pictures from mums, dads, children, churches and schools. The Prime Minister wrote. So did the Prince of Wales.
When school started there were TV cameras outside the gates of St. Catherine’s. Most of our friends were interviewed: everyone except for Emily, who was kept away from the cameras. She was the other member of our gang. Emily Martinez. She’s six months older, slightly overweight and she says “Wow!” a lot. I didn’t like her at first because she had this Little Miss Perfect thing going. Then I felt sorry for her because her parents were getting a divorce and fighting over her.
I never met her father—he was working in America—but her mum was pretty weird, always visiting doctors and therapists. Emily said she was highly strung, but Tash would tip up her hand, making a drinking motion.
On the first day back at school there were trauma counselors fluttering around the playground like seagulls fighting over chips. They were telling students it was all right to be upset and they should share their feelings. TV cameras were given permission to film the school assembly when Mrs. Jacobson said a special prayer for us, getting a little wobble in her voice as she talked fondly about Tash and me.
“Would you listen to her,” laughed Tash. “A month ago she couldn’t wait to get rid of me.”
“Now she wants you back.”
“Sod that.”
A month after we disappeared, George moved us from the attic room to this place. By then the police had stopped looking and everyone assumed that we’d run away. George no longer talked about ransom demands and money. He had rescued us, he said, like some noble knight in a fairy tale. He was going to protect us from all the temptations and evil in the world.
You probably think we were stupid to believe his lies. Naive. Gullible. Moronic. Next time you’re drugged and locked in a basement, hungry, thirsty, frightened, then you can judge us. When you have cried as many tears as we did; when you’re huddled beneath a blanket with your mind twisted; when you don’t have the strength to disobey or disbelieve.
He made us swallow some pills and we woke up in the basement. He cut the ladder so we couldn’t reach the trapdoor, not without his help, and we no longer had a TV or a skylight.
When we were good he would leave the lights on. If we misbehaved he would turn them off. You have never known darkness like it; so thick I could have suffocated upon it; so deep it felt like a monster breathing in my ears.
Our lives were managed and manipulated. George decided what we ate and what we wore. He controlled the light and air. There were times when he was kind and we could make fun of him. We could give him shopping lists and tease him into bringing us magazines and extra food.
“I don’t want you getting fat,” he said, as he rationed the chocolate.
The magazines were read cover to cover, over and over. There were new faces, new movies, new fashions, but also the familiar. Brad and Angelina. Posh and Becks. Elton and David. The world wasn’t changing so much. Prince William married Kate Middleton. Pippa’s bottom became famous.
We had no way of knowing if we were close to home. I still don’t. It could be miles away. It could be just past the trees. I know there’s a railway line nearby because I can hear the trains when the wind is blowing in the right direction.
I miss Tash. I miss being able to reach between our bunks and hold her hand. I miss hearing her voice. I miss watching her sleep.
George hasn’t come to see me since she ran away and I know he’s going to be angry. That’s why Tash has to come back soon with the police… before George does.
I’m running out of food and there’s hardly any gas left in the bottle.
My handwriting is getting messier, because it’s so cold. I can’t feel my fingers, which makes it hard to hold the pencil. When the point gets worn down, I scrape the lead gently across the bricks to sharpen it.
Writing keeps me sane, but Tash didn’t have anything like that.
She was getting sicker and sicker. Not eating. Chewing her nails until they bled.
That’s why she had to get out.
4
Augie Shaw is sitting at a table, propped forward on his elbows, staring at himself in the mirror. He can’t see me behind his reflection yet he seems to be gazing directly into my eyes.
Mirrors have an interesting effect in interview rooms. People struggle to lie when they can see themselves doing it. They become more self-conscious as they try to sound more convincing and truthful.
Augie is up now, pacing, talking to himself using gestures and grimaces as though conducting an internal dialogue. Taller than I imagined, he walks with an odd-legged shuffle, his hair falling over one eye.