Its claws couldn’t get to him through the tough material of his boilersuit, but its teeth had been a different matter. Dalip knew that if it had bitten him on his face or his hands or his feet, he’d need antibiotics that probably didn’t exist, and he’d also be bleeding heavily with a dog chewing on part of him.

He’d bunched the material on his arm, and offered that instead. It had clamped on, vice-like jaws closing hard, and he’d stabbed it. In the back, in the sides, and when it wouldn’t let go, the back of its neck.

The actual fight, from first nick to final, fatal blow had taken mere seconds. He’d left the knife in the dog, assuming he was still a prisoner, and wasn’t going to be allowed to keep a weapon.

She’d applauded him politely. Told him that Down was his true home. Then she’d left, taking the man with the silver cane with her.

That was all. Dalip had sat down in the centre of the circular floor and started to shake, the dog still and bleeding next to him. Then the guard had re-entered through the small door and taken the dog away. He’d left the door open, though. The invitation was obvious, one Dalip wasn’t quite ready to accept.

He pulled his sleeve back slowly, uncertain as to what he was going to see. Standing at the crease while some six-foot-tall fast bowler, only twenty-two yards away, launched a small hard ball at ninety miles an hour? Sometimes there were injuries: big, fat circular bruises, and once, a broken rib.

The skin on his forearm was torn, but only in a couple of places, and more shallow grazes than deep cuts. He could move his fingers and turn his wrist. The dark mottled arcs, top and bottom, showed where the teeth had dug in. It wasn’t that bad, but he might not be able to move it come the morning. And he’d had to kill the stupid dog, too.

He wondered where he’d got the courage to do it, to do something so alien to him as to stab another living creature to death. It might have been instinct, he supposed, but it was certainly nothing he’d learnt.

He looked up. The balcony was out of reach: he knew he’d never jump high enough to even get his fingertips on it. He looked at the pool of blood, and the smears leading from it, away and out the door. It was that way or no way.

Realising that he didn’t have an option, he dragged himself up. Beyond the door, he could go back to his cell, or keep following the blood, which trailed straight ahead, through the other door he’d noticed on the way in. That door was open too, and there was no one stopping him from going through.