A slender body, a perfect oval face, and bright blue hair. That is the reflection hiding itself from her right now.
‘I’m still here.’
‘I know.’
‘I’ll always be here.’
‘I know.’
As the mirror clears Maggie’s reflection gains substance. She can see the pale, pale skin on long, slim limbs. She can see loose and saggy skin, that she can never reveal to the light of day, because its folds and wrinkles are revolting, in spite of the relentless surgery she once endured. She can see the long, angry red scars, on the insides of her arms and legs. Disfigured limbs, that must always be clothed in long sleeves and trousers or opaque tights, that have never known the soft stroke of a lover’s hand. Never felt warm, damp kisses.
As the steam fades completely, so do Maggie’s scars, until they vanish and her flesh blossoms. She is growing, blooming, swelling. All the pounds she once lost by walking endless miles day after day, by existing on near-starvation levels of food, are coming back. She is getting plumper, riper, regaining the former self she once gloried in. She feels the weight of her breasts, the silky slide of her thighs as they brush together, the jiggling of her ass as she moves.
The last trace of steam leaves the mirror and Maggie can see her face again. It is the same face, but looking so very different with so much added flesh, and before the surgery removed the hook of her Jewish nose. Before expensive dentistry corrected the crooked teeth. Her hair isn’t blue any more. It is longer, thicker, curlier, dark as polished jet. Her eyes are conker brown. She has become the woman she used to be, before a broken heart and the shame of public humiliation forced her to flee, to change herself completely. She has become, once again, the woman she will always be inside; and the voice in her head breathes a long, satisfied sigh, happy at last.
She is Daisy.
Chapter 100
BBC News Homepage, Tuesday, 12 January 2016, 2000 hours
CONVICTED MURDERER AT LARGE AS PARKHURST WALLS BREACHED
Killer of three, Hamish Wolfe (pictured), could be on the run tonight after escaping from Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight. While the prison has made no official statement, and the Governor remains unavailable for comment, it is thought that Wolfe has already left the island.
According to unconfirmed reports that have reached the outside world through contraband mobile phones, Wolfe, 38, convicted in 2014 of the abduction and murder of three women, made a bid for freedom late this afternoon, slipping away during a disturbance and using a home-made ladder (pictured below) to scale the perimeter fence. Our correspondent has been unable to confirm that police dogs tracked him ten miles across open country to Sandown Airport (pictured), but has seen heightened police activity around the site.
Airport staff have confirmed that a two-seater Cessna has been reported missing from the airfield. It is understood that the plane’s owner is not currently in residence on the island and that the airport’s control room was given no details of a planned flight.
Wolfe is a qualified and experienced pilot and authorities are concluding that he escaped in the plane.
A spokesman for Avon and Somerset police refused to deny that the force is working on the assumption that Wolfe will head back to his home and that they are compiling a list of places and people that he might head for.
While no specific warning has yet been issued by police, Wolfe is considered a very dangerous man and the public should not approach him.
Screenshot placed in Avon and Somerset police files.
Chapter 101
MAGGIE ROSE, WHO started life as Margaret Rose Baron, nicknamed Daisy by her parents, is reading and re-reading the item on the BBC website about Hamish’s escape. When she feels she knows it by heart, she flicks to Twitter, to the stream of misspelled tweets supposedly sent from contraband mobile phones inside the prison, that have been retweeted several thousand times already.
She can find nothing else on the internet to bear out the escape story but knows that Pete has been trying to get in touch with her for nearly an hour now. She has ignored his phone calls, and his texts, but the email from his colleague with the odd name caught her attention. The message contained a link to the BBC site.
She has tried to telephone Parkhurst but the phones are not being answered. She has tried to contact the Isle of Wight police but gets voicemail messages. Somehow she found the energy to get dressed, although she hardly knows why.
She tries to work out how long it would take a fit man to run ten miles. How long it would take a light aircraft to fly from the Isle of Wight to Somerset.
Will he come to her?
She remembers Sirocco’s words on the night the two of them met. ‘He has a plan. You’re part of it.’ If Maggie has played a role in this, she cannot see it. Everything Hamish has said to her, about relying upon her, about trusting her, has been a lie. He has been stringing her along, while all the time planning to escape.