‘It’s not! It’s easy! All you’d have to do is take us somewhere far away and leave us—’

‘That can’t happen.’

‘It can,’ Maggie said. ‘Of course it can, and you were thinking about it. I saw you. You were considering it. Please. Please. It’s a good idea. Please.’

He shook his head. ‘No. I can’t.’

‘Why? Why not?’

He pointed at Max. ‘Because of him.’

‘Max?’ Maggie said. ‘He’s still a baby! He has no idea who you are. How can it be because of him? He won’t say anything!’

‘He doesn’t need to. He’s my son.’

Maggie felt a growing confusion. Was he saying that he felt some paternal instinct towards Max? That keeping him here was some weird parenting method, and that he didn’t want to be apart from him?

‘You can see him whenever you want,’ she said. ‘I prom—’

‘That’s not it,’ he said. ‘He has my DNA.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Maggie said. ‘I don’t see how that’s a problem.’

‘They’ll look at his DNA and it will lead them to me. They have my DNA in their system. They take it for anything. So the answer is no.’

‘They can’t do that! It’s not possible!’

‘Maybe not. But it might be possible, and that’s enough. I can’t take that risk.’

‘Then I won’t let them have Max’s DNA. I’m his mum. I can stop them taking it.’

‘They will anyway.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s not going to happen.’

Maggie watched him walk across the room, his thick ankles clicking above his slippers. He took the key from the chain around his wrist and unlocked the door, and then he was gone.

Maggie sank on to the bed. Tears welled up; for a moment she’d believed that the end of this nightmare had come, but, like every other hope she’d had for the last decade it had come to nothing.

She looked at the calendar.

Sunday was over. Tomorrow was Monday. Five days until he took Max. She had to find a way to save her son. She had to.

But she had had to for a long time, and there was no reason to believe that in the next five days she would be any more successful.

Twelve Years Earlier, 7 July 2006: Evening

1