This time I pounced on his words and committed them to memory. Joy flooded through my veins and my heart swelled. I’d waited so long to hear his voice.
He had to push the door hard, and the hinges squeaked as it opened, but I could see that it had been used often. The moonlight glinted on the dark metallic surface. This was it. This was what Aiden had been painting in therapy. This was the dark grey from his nightmares. On the other side of the door was where Aiden had been held captive for ten years. I tried to steady my breathing.
There was a step down, cut out of the slope of the hill. Once I stepped down, the door wasn’t quite so small, and I was able to follow Aiden through that small, metal door, by ducking my head down. I was careful not to touch the handle. This was important, now. This was the part where all the pieces would come together and I would finally get justice for Aiden.
“Don’t shut.”
Of course not, I thought. That door would never shut again.
The door opened into a narrow passageway that descended down several cement steps. I resisted the urge to place my hand on the cement wall of the passageway to steady myself in the dark. I had to be careful not to contaminate any evidence. At the bottom of the steps was a second door. This one hung open, leaving the doorway exposed like a missing tooth, obviously vacated in a hurry. It was when I reached this door that the foul stench hit my nostrils.
Aiden hit a switch but nothing happened. He groped around the hallway before lifting something from a hook. I heard the clunk of a switch and a bright light flickered on. I winced at the sudden brightness. Aiden walked into the room and pressed on a lantern. He moved around the room turning on several small lanterns, the torchlight bobbing around as he made his way around the place. With more light I could see my surroundings. I was in a small room—about the size of a large living room—that had been partitioned into two areas. One of those areas was sectioned off with what looked like a heavy metal barred fence that had been welded in place. Someone had cut into the bars to create a door that was hanging open. On the ground near to the open door was a heavy chain and a padlock. Inside the cage was a small mattress with a crumpled duvet on top, a pile of books, a small desk with a plastic chair next to it, a sink, a tiny fridge, and a toilet. They were the kind of sinks and toilets you would find in a caravan, with pumps instead of regular taps.
“This is where I sleep,” Aiden said, pointing to the bed.
Every hair on my arms and scalp prickled. I had thought I couldn’t get any colder, but I was wrong. Looking at this room, and hearing my son say those words, brought the severity of his ordeal home, and I wondered whether I would ever be warm again. Would a hot bath or shower ever take away the chilling sensation of knowing and understanding exactly how cruel a human being could be? I’d pictured something like this in my mind. I’d actually pictured worse. I’d had nightmares about cages and chains and stained mattresses, but somehow, the reality of seeing my son’s cage was worse than anything I had imagined.
I couldn’t move my body, but I forced myself to look around the room. My eyes trailed the length of the place as Aiden’s torch roamed from corner to corner. I watched as the torch moved from the barred area, to the things that were around the rest of the room. I followed the beam of like as it moved towards the misshapen lump in the corner, and then quickly looked away. I didn’t want to see that yet, not properly, and instead took in the fan, the ventilation grates on the ceiling, the leaking freezer, the small armchair, the shabby toys, the dirty clothes, the unplugged heater, the wall of crayon drawings that I never got to receive from my own child. Of all the disgusting facts I knew about what had happened to my son, the part that disturbed me more than anything was that this had been a home. This was where my son had grown up. My knees weakened, but I forced myself to stay upright.
“This is Beaver the Bear. I got too old for him though. I drew that picture. It’s the Great Wall of China. I had my picnic there. This one is a mountain, see? That’s the heater. I’m allowed it on for thirty minutes in the morning and thirty minutes at night. I can’t use it more or the generator will run out.”
No one knew. Ten years and no one knew this place existed. I never knew.
How did he do it?
My eyes moved across the room to the lump in the corner. “Aiden, who is that?”
But Aiden was distracted by trying to pull one of the pictures off the wall. “This one is you. I drew a lot of you at the start. You don’t look the same now.”
“Aiden, who is it? Who brought you here?”
The walls were too close. I couldn’t breathe. Every part of my body felt heavy with the knowledge that I knew who it was, and I should have guessed earlier. I’d been so stupid. Why hadn’t I figured it out?
“Oh, yeah, him.” Aiden sounded sad. “I watched his thoughts go. Didn’t want to, but I wanted to leave.”