The grille was scraping against my hands as I pounded, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t sure what Troy was up to, but if he had a plan I was all in. Though taken aback, Jarvis still carried on filming, raising his hand slightly. A quick sideways glance revealed that Troy was still signing, though he did his best to make his hands appear as if they were just making random, desperate movements rather than sending a message. He’d told me about his ability to do sign language after the first time we’d been filmed, an ability that had helped keep the small flame of hope alive within me. All I could do now was pray that his sister would somehow get to see Jarvis’s recording. I carried on banging on the grille and shouting. Jarvis walked round the front of the car, filming us and the garage. I didn’t take my eyes off him. He finally nodded, satisfied, and put his phone away.

‘Nice try, Troy, but I know all about you and your sign language,’ said Jarvis. ‘I’ll make sure your twitchy fingers are cut out of any recording I send to your sister and Tobey Durbridge. Now you two won’t mind staying put while I run a couple of errands, OK?’

Troy gave him the finger, no decoding required. Eyebrows raised and a smile on his lips, Jarvis removed what looked like a green jerrycan from one of the metal shelves by the garage door. Taking off the cap, he started splashing its contents all over the car – front, back, sides and roof. The smell hit me after a few seconds, but I knew what it was before that. Petrol. We were being doused with petrol.

‘NO! Don’t do this. Please!’ I screamed. ‘We’ve never done anything to you—’

‘We’ve seen his face and can identify him.’ Troy’s voice was quiet as we watched the clear liquid running down the car windows like deadly rain.

‘Jarvis, please don’t do this,’ I pleaded. ‘Troy, do something—’

‘Don’t beg, Libby. Don’t give him the satisfaction,’ said Troy, his gaze never once moving from Jarvis and what he was doing.

When he had finished, Jarvis carelessly threw down the can. We watched in silence as he moved to the up-and-over garage door and started connecting up something, though I couldn’t see what it was as his back was to us. After about a minute, he dug in his pocket and retrieved a key. Flicking a switch on the wall, he unlocked the internal garage door and entered the house.

‘Well, at least he left the light on.’

‘What?’

‘The light switch by the door.’ Troy pointed. ‘He could’ve just left us to stew in the dark.’