It was the work of a moment to thrust the piece into the stem beside the valve and she was immediately gratified by the faint hiss of escaping air. It would take a while, hours maybe, but the tyre would go flat. ‘And we’ll see how you handle that, you sick bastard,’ she muttered, wrenching the second strap through its buckle.

Back in the vehicle, Matt retained both the water and her shoes. He drank thirstily from the mouth of the bag, wiping away the spillage with his thumb. Hating to ask, Tilly did, knowing her body needed it. ‘May I have some? I’m thirsty.’

‘Too bad.’ He settled the bag at his feet, where her shoes also rested. ‘Drive. Maybe you can earn it by behavin’ yourself.’

Soon enough they reached the road. She braked in feigned amazement at sight of the raw red ribbon of track and turned to stare at her captor. ‘What’s that? It looks new.’

‘Drive,’ he muttered irritably, and as she deliberately swung the wheel north-east, ‘The other way! For Chrissake, haven’t you learnt nothin’? You can’t be that bloody dumb.’

Tilly allowed herself a burst of frustration. ‘Well, I don’t know where I am, or where I’m going!’ She slammed the gear lever into reverse and backed up, turning the wheel to the right as they started off again. ‘I’ve never even seen this road before. Where does it go?’

‘Zip it, woman. Just drive.’ He was sweating worse than ever and his sun-splotched face looked flushed as if he had started a fever.

She said maliciously, ‘You ought to check your foot. If it’s swelling and turning blue, the blood supply might be interrupted. That causes gangrene. Displaced bones can do that, you know – block arteries. And I’m willing to bet your patella’s not where it should be.’

He bared his teeth at her. ‘Yeah, and I haven’t forgotten who done it, neither.’

The threat inherent in his words silenced her and for a craven moment Tilly wished the taunt unsaid. She drew in a breath but held her peace; there was no point in trying him too far. She tried to calculate how far they had come. He’d said ninety kilometres, which, she presumed, would include the stretch from the cave to the new road. It must have taken a good hour to get that far, but the speedometer wouldn’t have reached fifteen km/h on much of it, and she was only doing forty now. The track might be graded but it was a very cursory affair, more a clearing of bushes, anthills and fallen timber than a real grade. Still, it was clearly a boon to the smugglers, giving them egress from the property in a direction from which they couldn’t be overlooked.