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No little boy peering over the side.

‘Max!’ she called. ‘Max!’

He was probably fine. The bath was deep, so he could easily be hidden, but it was the lack of noise that worried her, that made her picture his body, face down in the water.

It was funny: losing your child in a supermarket or park or outside school was every parent’s worst nightmare. The moment, even if it only lasted for a split-second, when you couldn’t see them, was heart-stopping. Even she, trapped in a place where there was nowhere he could have gone, had that feeling. It was something primal, instinctive.

And she was panicking now.

Then there was a noise. A hollow thump, like a bass drum. There was a pause, and then it came again. Maggie breathed out, her lips pursed. He was there. Safe and making noise. She walked over to the bath. Max was sitting on the floor, banging his heel against the wood. The noise reverberated around the room, amplified by the space between the floor and the base of the bath.

Maggie smiled. ‘Well, well,’ she said. ‘Quite the musician, aren’t you?’

‘Bang!’ Max thumped the wood. ‘Bang!’

Maggie leaned over and tapped out the knock that everyone learned – dum dum duh-dum dum – dum, dum – then ruffled his hair.

‘Try that.’

Max banged a random series. Maggie did the knock again. He frowned in concentration, then tried to copy her. It wasn’t much better, but she clapped her hands together.

‘Well done! I think you might be a pop star when you grow up.’

‘What’s that?’ he asked.

‘Someone who sings songs.’

‘I like singing.’

‘Me too. And you never know. Maybe you’ll be famous.’

He would be, if he ever got out of here, but not as a pop star. As the boy who had been born in a basement. The problem was he wouldn’t get out. In four days he’d be three, and the man would come for him.

There’d be no more baths. No more laughter and splashing. No more anything.

She wanted this moment to never end. She wanted him to stay in the bath, happy and clean and naked and perfect, forever.

Twelve Years Earlier, 29 July 2006

1

Martin stirred milk into his tea and stared out of the kitchen window. It had been three weeks since she had gone. He looked at the orange pill container in his hand. Only a few left.

There should have been more. At a rate of one a day there should have been a lot more.

But one a day wasn’t enough to quiet the voices in his head. Not nearly enough. Two muted them; three turned them into background noise.

For a while. And then the volume slowly turned up again.

Sometimes the voices blamed him. Told him he was useless. He should have protected her, taken her to Anne’s house, made sure she got there safely.

Sometimes it was Sandra’s voice saying those things. Even though she’d never said it in real life, she probably thought it. She must do. He did, after all.

Other times it was Maggie’s voice. That was when it was the worst. That was when he took more of the pills, took as many as he needed to quiet her voice.

Hi, Dad. Door slamming. What’s for tea? Can I have a lift to Kevin’s house?

Can I have a lift to Anne’s house?