He dresses in the clothes we’ve brought down and eats standing, on his side of the room. This is usual, he knows the rules; standing is allowed, walking is not. He paces on the spot, lifting one knee and the next, putting his fork down to swing an arm, swap his plate to the opposite hand, swing the other. The food’s cold but this is also usual, for one reason or another; the weather, strangers outside our building, Sherwin needing to be changed. We eat in silence, rapidly, both hungry, both wary it seems, yet Sherwin seems in good spirits, or better than he was. Before, when he first arrived, he complained, cajoled, shouted for hours. Danny had to go down when he started screaming in the night. He took the gun and didn’t tell me what he’d said, but it stopped. Ever since, Sherwin looks at Danny with flames in his eyes.

‘That’s nice,’ Sherwin says. ‘Best muffins you’ve made. Not hunger talking either.’

‘Thanks,’ I mutter, head down. I’m holding the gun now while Danny takes his turn to eat.

‘So how long do you intend to keep this up? Out of interest?’

Danny looks up from his plate.

‘Until someone comes,’ he says.

Sherwin eyes him for a long time. Danny holds the stare until he sees me looking, ducks his head to shovel up the last of the muffin and alabaster sauce mixed with yolk. Sherwin keeps watching, points his plastic fork at me.

‘You can’t be serious. No one’s coming.’

‘Radio says—’

‘No one’s coming. No police, no army. No one. They’ll bomb the place and leave it at that.’

Danny shoots me a glance. We’ve had this conversation. I try not to hear the whining scrape of his fork against the plate.

‘They won’t. It won’t solve the problem.’

‘Then what else?’

I open my mouth, shrug, and for a moment the gun’s pointing at the boarded-up windows.

Sherwin steps forward. ‘Nicole—’

Danny sucks in a sharp breath. I jump and point the gun at Sherwin, a brutal jerk of my wrist. Sherwin stops. Forces his bitter smile at the floor again, holds up his hands.

‘All right. All right.’

He backs off and I’m glad. He drops to the floor, does his stretches; touches toes, grabs each ankle and forces his heels to the backs of his thighs, leans to the right and to the left, one arm over his head. Then he goes through his exercise routine. Push-ups, sit-ups, squat thrusts, jogging on the spot. It takes roughly twenty minutes. In all that time he never takes his eyes from us, and we don’t say a word, not to each other or him. When he’s done he sits back in the leather seat, hands on the armrest.

‘You can tie me up now,’ he says.

‘Don’t you want to use the toilet?’