‘Bonehead! Shit, this hurts!’ Strangler’s voice is all pain.

I try to shift the big block, which is nearly as tall as I am and too wide to get my arms around. I move it a whisker and a pile of stuff falls on me. I look up and see that if I shift this any further, the other half of the roof’s going to come down and Strangler and me will be flat as griddle cakes. Can I tunnel in below maybe, slip him out like a ferret from its hole?

‘Hang on, Strangler. Listen, can you move? Can you get down on the floor?’

He tries, it hurts, he starts to scream and bites it back.

‘If you can get down low I might be able to pull you out under here. There’s a gap, just small. But you always were a skinny runt of a man. Look, here, I’m sticking my arm through. Can you feel it?’ This is taking too long. I can hear someone shouting out there. If the guards spot us going over the roof, they’ll be onto us before we get a chance to run.

A hand touches mine. He’s there, he’s made it.

‘Good man. Can you give me both hands? This is going to hurt a bit.’

The gap’s small. I’d get a child out easily, but a man’s another matter. An injured man, even worse. There’s a broken bar sticking out halfway through, and pieces of the stone wall balanced on each other like some kind of toy, all set to fall at a wrong touch. This could kill him.

‘Got you. Deep breath, Strangler. I’ll try to make it quick and clean.’

He lets out an unearthly shriek as I haul him through. I’m going to hear that sound forever, in my nightmares. Then he’s out, lying face down beside me, his chest heaving. He curses me with every foul word he knows, which I take as a good sign.

‘Got to get out,’ I tell him. ‘Up there. Now.’

‘Others,’ Strangler whispers. ‘Are they . . . ?’

‘Some out already, some . . . gone.’ I jerk my head toward the wreckage of the other cells. ‘Come on, we’ve got to move.’

‘Shit. My back.’

He can’t walk. Whatever happened, it’s hurt him too much to let him even stand for long. The roof’s pretty high. Had planned to boost him up, same as the others, then jump for the edges and haul myself after him. Change of plan needed. People shouting outside now, and it’s day. Something I haven’t seen in a long while: blue sky.

‘Just leave me the knife, Bonehead,’ says Strangler, eyeing Slammer’s weapon, which I’ve stuck in my belt. ‘Go on, climb up, save yourself.’ And when I gape at him, he asks, ‘Your Lady get out all right?’