Stolen: the prize-winning psychological thriller

by Lucy Christopher

In the first instance, I’ll tell them exactly what they want to hear. I’ll tell them how you followed me, how you . . . stalked me . . . from such an early age. I’ll tell them how you came to the UK to look for your mother and instead found drink and drugs . . . and then me. I’ll tell them about your inability to fit in, about your deluded thoughts about the desert and me being your only escape. Then the lawyer will ask me about the airport, and I’ll tell him that you drugged me and stole me. I’ll tell them that you shoved me in the boot of your car and held me against my will. I’ll tell them about the long, lonely nights in that small wooden shack and about being locked in the bathroom . . . how I waited for you to kill me. I’ll tell them about your anger bursts and instability, your lies, and I will tell them how you grabbed me so hard sometimes that you made my eyes water and my skin turn red. And I won’t look at you through that testimony. I’ll just say what they expect. ‘He’s a monster,’ I’ll say. ‘Yes, he kidnapped me.’ And the judge will bash the little hammer and hand out a sentence of fifteen years or so, and everything – everything – will finally be over.