And then the new baby was born. A boy again. Pink and beautiful and red-haired. She hadn’t wanted him, but now he was there she loved him uncontrollably. Leo, she called him. Leo the lion, with his mane of red hair.

He was different to Seb. Smaller. More watchful. Quicker. By the time he was two he could talk, whole sentences. At two and a half he could read the alphabet. She had taught him by writing out tiny letters on a scrap of paper.

At three he was gone. On his birthday, the man came. He pointed at Leo.

Give him to me, he said.

No, she replied. Not this time.

Yes, he said, in his heavy, slow voice. Yes.

This time she fought, but it was no use. It had never been any use, not since the first time she had tried and he had taught her – in the most awful, awful way – never to try again. But she had. She had held Leo to her chest, but the man hit her and forced her on to her back and held his forearm against her throat then prised her arms apart until he had Leo and she was unconscious. The last thing she saw before she passed out was her beautiful boy wriggling from his arms and running away.

But there was only one place for Leo to go, and he went there.

Through the open door and up the stairs, to the place the man lived.

The next time she saw him she didn’t bother asking where Leo was. There was no point.

And then, as though the universe was punishing her, the cycle repeated itself. The door opening. The nod at the bed. The disgusting act.

Then the missed period and the cramps and the feeling of being bloated and uncomfortable. And nine months later, another baby.

Another boy.

Max, after the boy in Where the Wild Things Are.

Max, the curly-haired, ever-smiling, bright-eyed button of joy who she loved with an intensity that surpassed anything she had felt before, even with Seb and Leo, if only because since the day he had arrived she had known she would only have three years with him, three short years into which she had to cram a lifetime of love.

Max, who would turn three on Saturday, 23 June.

She looked at him, sleeping on the mattress they shared, spread-eagled on his back, mouth slightly open and she shook her head.

It couldn’t happen again. It couldn’t.

But it would. She was powerless. The man would come and open the door and take Max from her, whatever she did. And even if she stopped him somehow, it would only be a temporary respite. He would put sleeping pills in her food or knock her unconscious and take her little boy.

She couldn’t fight him every day of Max’s life.

And so she had seven days left. Seven days with her son.