Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

In the John Fowles horror masterpiece, The Collector, we learn of the abduction and imprisonment of Miranda Grey by Frederick Clegg, told first from his point of view, and then from hers by means of a diary she has kept. In the last few pages, we get Clegg's narration of her death. Clegg's section begins with his recalling how he used to watch Miranda entering and leaving her house, across from where he worked. He describes keeping an "observation diary" about her, whom he thinks of as "a rarity". He regards Miranda as he would a beautiful butterfly that he is determined to "collect" even if this will deprive her of freedom and life.

AUSTRIA Meanwhile, more details have emerged suggesting that a woman found near Vienna on Wednesday is a schoolgirl who vanished eight years ago. The passport of Natascha Kampusch was found at the house where she was allegedly imprisoned and the woman had the same distinctive scar as the girl. The suspected kidnapper died after throwing himself in front of a train. The man was named in Austrian media as Wolfgang Priklopil.

Clegg buys a van and a house in the country with an enclosed room in its basement that he remodels to make securable and hideable. When he returns to London, he watches Miranda for 10 days. Then, as she is walking home alone from the cinema, he captures her, using a rag soaked in chloroform, ties her up in his van, takes her to his house, and locks her in the basement.

AUSTRIA Ms Kampusch's disappearance in 1998 shocked the country and triggered a search that extended into Hungary. Priklopil had been questioned by police in April 1998, as one of more than 1,000 owners of white vans. He was later released. A schoolfriend of Ms Kampusch had told police the girl had been abducted in a white van.

Miranda uses several ploys in attempts to escape. She feigns appendicitis, but Clegg only pretends to leave, and sees her recover immediately. She tries to slip a message into the reassuring note that he says he will send to her parents, but he finds it. When he goes to London, she asks for a number of things that will be difficult to find, so that she will have time to try to dig her way out with a nail she has found, but that effort also is futile.

AUSTRIA It is not clear what the kidnapper's motives were. Police say he had no connection to the girl's family and there had been no ransom demand. Austrian media report that the room had a cavity measuring four by three metres, with an entrance measuring 50cm by 50cm. They believe it was blocked with a sound-proof safe whenever the kidnapper left the scene.

In the third section of the book, Clegg tells of becoming worried about Miranda's condition and decides to go for a doctor. As he sits in the waiting room, he begins to feel insecure, and he goes to a chemist's instead, where the pharmacist refuses to help him. When he returns and finds Miranda worse, Clegg goes back to town in the middle of the night, to wake a doctor; this time an inquisitive policeman frightens him off. Miranda dies, and Clegg plans to commit suicide.

AUSTRIA Asked why the woman had not tried to flee until now, BKA investigator Erich Zwettler said she seemed to have had "Stockholm Syndrome," a psychological condition in which captives identify with their captors. But she said her captor occasionally let her walk with him in the village and allowed her access to radio, television, newspapers and books, according to police and local media.

In the final section of The Collector, Clegg describes awakening to a new outlook. He decides that he is not responsible for Miranda's death, that his mistake was kidnapping someone too far above him, socially. As the novel ends, Clegg is thinking about how he will have to do things differently when he abducts a more suitable girl that he has seen working in Woolworth's.