The silence from the cell was bothering him too. Up here in the living room he had never heard anything, the work of installing the insulation had taken several weeks, but the absence of entreaties from the other side of the door when he had been down there cutting off the water supply earlier that evening made him more anxious than ever. He could have made the wall move, just to force a reaction. Or at least have looked in through the hatch.

He must go down. Just to check.

Always best to be on the safe side.

Not allowing himself time to change his mind, he got up abruptly and went out into the hallway. He opened the basement door and went downstairs.

It was still very quiet. Now that the water had been turned off, there wasn’t even the sound of the low susurration from the pipes. He tramped extra hard across the floor, lifted the bolt on the hatch and opened it.

The man was asleep.

He was lying on his side on the bunk, with his legs at a strange angle. It looked as if he had decided to stand up, but hadn’t had the strength and half of him had lain down again. One foot reached all the way to the floor. His arms were clamped to his chest, totally flat and crossed.

‘Hey!’ the silver-haired man called out.

It occurred to him immediately that he should disguise his voice. That was the plan. That was how he had written it down, in the manuscript, the precise plan that would ensure everything went smoothly, and that no one would ever find out who he was.

‘Hello,’ he croaked. ‘Are you awake?’

Still no reaction in there.

‘Bloody hell,’ he said in a loud voice. ‘Wake up!’

He couldn’t open the door. It was far too risky. It could all be an act. Open the door and then, hey presto, the guy jumped up on his feet. Even if he was ever so debilitated after the days spent down here, desperation could bring undreamed-of strength. It was obvious that the man was desperate, and that was nothing to reproach him for.

Instead he hammered on the door with both hands. The cold metal made his fists smart. He stopped. Peered inside.

It looked as if the prisoner was dead.

But he couldn’t be.

‘Hello!’ he bellowed, failing to remember that his voice should be someone else’s. ‘Are you sleeping? Get up! Now!’

Still silence.

His headache was on the verge of bursting his head now, and he felt he was about to lose his temper. He was so unused to this that he forgot his own intentions about taking the greatest caution and instead picked up a wooden ski from the stack behind the carpenter’s bench, lifted the latch on the steel door and opened the cell where the prisoner was still lying as if he were dead.