She tried to make out any shape in the darkness and, even though she guessed there was none, there was one thing she did know.

After she’d been drugged, she’d been moved from the basement.

As she progressed further into wakefulness, Francesca could hear her heart beating faster by the moment and the blood in her head pounding in her ears.

‘Breathe deeply,’ she said to herself. ‘And listen to the noises outside your own skin. Yes, Francesca. That’s good, Francesca. Calm down, Francesca.’

As Francesca listened, she became increasingly aware of her body. Her feet were tied tightly at the ankles with rope or cloth and her hands were tied behind her back at the wrists.

She couldn’t make out any sound beyond the space.

‘Hello.’

She spoke softly and, listening to her own voice, was certain she was no longer in the basement.

Beneath her was a blanket, and beneath the rough fabric there were indentations on the floor.

‘Hello. Hello.’

From the acoustics, she knew she was in a confined space, a place much smaller than the basement.

She drew air in slowly through her nose and her senses of smell and taste picked up metal and rubber.

Francesca rocked herself on to her front and the relief down her side was instantaneous and intense. The space rocked, a tiny motion.

I’m in a vehicle, she thought.

In the distance outside the vehicle, she heard a sound but couldn’t place the direction it came from. Der. Der.

It was a train, moving at speed, and she was filled with envy for every last person travelling away from the place where she was trapped.

Oil.

She smelled it close at hand, heard it slosh as it moved from left to right in what she guessed was a can centimetres away from where she lay.

‘Jesus,’ she whispered into the slackening darkness that still engulfed her vision. The blanket of murkiness grew grainy with dark particles of grey specks dancing in front of her.

I’m not in a car, she thought. It’s too big. I’m not squashed into a car boot. This space is big enough for me. She sensed space above her head and beneath her feet. The space is bigger than me.

The smell of raw meat infiltrated the trinity of oil, rubber and metal.

A butcher’s van. Lamb. Beef. Pork. Chicken. Meat from different animals with one thing in common: all dead, all skinned.

For the first time in captivity, she had a feeling that was stronger than the terror that had possessed her. Nostalgia. Thoughts of her past life, freedom, boredom, excitement, work and rest, family and home, sorrow, grief, joy, love and sex drowned the all-consuming sickness inspired by what the future held for her.

‘My name is Francesca Christie.’

As she spoke, clarity swept through her brain and she put all the pieces together.