And she learned that the cotton had to be so tight it felt like someone was slicing her finger apart. The thin thread bit into the flesh of her finger so hard that it drew blood, which brought a new level of agony. It burned.

And then there was the stitching.

To make sure the Duplo truly held she pushed the needle through the end of her finger, drawing the thread through her flesh, then wrapping it under her finger, before putting the needle back into the same hole and repeating the process until her hand was slick with blood and she was sure the Duplo would hold.

When it was done, she looked at Max, the pain leaving her short of breath. She had three more fingers and a thumb to go, but she wasn’t sure she could bear this until the man came. She wasn’t sure she could bear it for another second.

But she had to. This was for Max. For his life. His entire life. This was the way she would make sure he saw his fourth birthday.

An hour – two hours? A day? A week? – of pain, for a lifetime with Max?

No question.

She picked up the biggest, sharpest piece of Duplo and started on the next finger.

‘What?’ The man looked at her from behind his hand. His expression was a mixture of fear and shock. No doubt he had expected her to argue with him when he came for Max, maybe try to fight him, but he had not expected this.

He held out his other hand, palm up.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Stop.’

Maggie feinted with her left hand and then jumped forward, slamming her right hand into his face. In it she was holding the tinfoil ball of bleach, and the liquid smeared all over his face, mixing with blood and turning pink.

He screamed again, swiping his face in an attempt to wipe the bleach from it. It was pointless. The bleach was in the wounds and all he was doing was rubbing it in further.

He staggered back; when he was off balance, Maggie jumped forward and pushed him on to the floor. She looked down at his face, saw the blotches and patches of stubble and wispy hair growing from his nose, saw how he had aged, saw just how much time had passed, and she understood what he had done to her, what he had taken from her and from her brother and from her parents.

She grabbed the side of his face, the shard of Duplo on her thumb digging into his lower lip, her other four fingers forming a semi-circle stretching from his eye to his chin, and she squeezed.