Afraid to reply in case it was some kind of trick, Viktorya backed away from the wall. The man had said that he, too, was locked in, so she guessed there was no point in trying the door. Instead, she felt her way over to the window and eased one of the heavy curtains aside. At first, all she could see was inky darkness, but then the moon emerged from behind a cloud and her face was bathed in its milky glow. And in the few seconds before it disappeared again, she saw that the window was nailed shut.

‘I’m so sorry this is happening to you,’ the invisible man was saying, his voice fainter now she’d moved away from the wall. ‘But I’m going to get you and your friends out of here. I don’t know how, or how long it’ll take, but I’ll find a way, I promise.’

Viktorya stared at the spot on the wall where the voice appeared to be coming from and covered her mouth with her hand when hot tears trickled from the corners of her swollen eyes and burned a path down her bruised cheeks. She so wanted to believe that he could help her, but if he was telling the truth about being locked in, he was clearly no match for these people.

On the other side of the wall, Frank held his breath and waited for the girl to respond. When she didn’t, he sighed heavily and went back over to his bed. He had heard the fear in her voice when she’d cried out, and he’d hoped it might bring her some comfort if she heard that she wasn’t alone. It obviously hadn’t worked, and his heart ached when he thought about the terror she must be feeling. Her and her friends, who he’d seen Nick and one of the other men herd into the van shortly after Evan had left this evening. God only knew where they’d been taken, but Frank couldn’t imagine they would be treated any better there than they were being treated here, and it sickened him to think that these animals were getting away with this. But he’d meant what he told that girl: one way or another, even if it meant sacrificing his own safety to achieve it, he was determined to save them.

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