From somewhere, Bev dredged up a shred of determination. What about all those cases where girls and women had been taken captive and ended up escaping? She could be one of those. She wasn’t a quitter, she was a survivor. Whatever it took, she could find it in herself. Without making it obvious, Bev checked out the room she was being marched across. Cement floor, workbench, blank walls covered with hooks that held tools and garden equipment. A garage, then. He was pushing her towards a door that stood ajar in a side wall. He shoved her hard through the door, making her stumble and fall. Polished stone tiles, wooden cupboards, a fridge. A kitchen, then. Bev tried to get to her feet, but with her hands fastened behind her, it was impossible. She heard the rattle of the chain then slid across the floor as he pulled on it. The skin round the cuff tore, giving her a new centre of pain.

When she came to a standstill, he kicked her thigh, so hard she felt the muscle numb. ‘You’re mine now,’ he said. ‘Do you understand? You’re my wife. If you do what you’re told and you behave like a good wife should, everything will be fine. But if you give me any grounds for complaint, I will hurt you. Is that clear?’ He spoke with an educated Northern accent, at odds with his working man’s outfit. She couldn’t pin his origin down precisely. Never mind. It was something else to store away for the future. Bev didn’t know how, but it might be useful.

He picked up the slack in the chain and waved it at her. ‘You see this? The other end is chained to the wall. There.’ He pointed to a solid metal eye screwed into the door frame. ‘Don’t even think about it. Four screws, each one three inches long. You’ve got free range for the length of your chain. There’s no knives within reach. Nothing you can hurt me with. And I’ve got this.’ He took a slim black object from his trouser pocket. ‘It’s a taser. That’s what I used on you when I took you out of your kennel. Remember how that felt? Well, that was just a taster. A taster of the taser.’ He smiled at his own cleverness. ‘I can disable you from twenty feet away.’