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There was no reply. She felt around her on the bed, her hands reaching in vain for his warm, sleeping body, then rolled on to the floor. In the darkness she crawled from wall to wall, covering every inch of the floor with her hands. She felt inside the bath and around the bucket and on every corner of the mattress.

Leo was gone.

There was no escaping it.

The man had taken him. It was Seb all over again.

Where was Leo? In the man’s house right now, eating chocolate and marvelling at the wonder of television? Or sleeping in a soft, warm bed of his own? No. The man could not be seen with a three-year-old boy. So what had he done?

Left Leo by the side of a road for someone to find and take to the police? She had a momentary fantasy of her parents hearing about the little boy who was found and adopting him, unaware that he was their grandson.

Or worse. What if Leo was dead? Thrown into a deep lake or buried in some remote forest? She curled up in a ball on the mattress, her hands covering her face.

‘No!’ she screamed. She banged her fists against the wall. ‘No! No! No!’ She wanted to destroy this place, get out of here and kill the man, but she couldn’t. She was trapped. Stuck, with no way of getting out.

All she could do was destroy herself.

She curled her hands into claws and dug her nails into her cheeks. The pain was shocking; she felt the blood run down her face.

She dug in harder, pulling downwards, until the pain was too much to bear, and then she stopped, and lay on her side as her tears mingled with her blood.

‘Leo,’ she said, her voice a whisper. ‘Leo. I love you. Be happy, my son.’

Saturday, 23 June 2018

No Days to Go

1

It was today.

Maggie picked up the calendar and drew a line through the last date.

SSuMTuWThF

1

2345678

9101112131415

16171819202122

23242526272829

30

Max was three.

He was sleeping next to her, his face turned to the wall. She lay behind him, watching his chest rise and fall. He’d wake soon, and smile, and laugh and ask for a story or to play with his Duplo or do some exercises. And she’d do it, but all the time she would feel heavy, numbed by the knowledge of what was to come.

The scraping sound. The handle turning. The man looking for him.

Where is he?

Her, shaking her head, refusing to say.

The man finding him anyway.