‘In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re stuck in a locked car covered in petrol, in a garage, in the middle of nowhere with no means of escape,’ I pointed out.

‘Believe me, I’d noticed,’ said Troy quietly. ‘But we’re still standing – and that counts for a lot. And, if he is gonna use that recording he just made to squeeze money out of my sister or your dad, then hopefully Callie will be able to see what I signed.’

‘Jarvis said he was going to cut out your fingers,’ I reminded him.

‘He may delete some of my message, but he can’t delete the whole thing, not without cutting our faces out of the recording as well,’ said Troy. ‘I made sure of it.’

‘In a half-full mood, I see.’

‘A half-full mood means you live life with hope rather than just endure it with an empty heart,’ said Troy.

Yeah, but for how long? I pulled at the car door again. It didn’t budge. We were going nowhere. Flinging myself back in my seat, I took a proper look round the garage. It was lined with shelves on which sat cans of paint and old bits of junk like discarded toasters and hairdryers, a fan heater on its side, a number of boxes of assorted sizes, bits of metal and wire and … oh my God! Only then did I see it. What the hell?

‘Troy, is that what I think it is?’

He turned to see what I was pointing at. ‘What is it?’ he frowned.

I contorted my body to get a proper look. On a shelf just behind us and to my right sat an orange-coloured block about the size of a box of fifty Crossmas cards. Next to it was a phone with a lead coming out of it and into a small black container that had been pushed into the orange-coloured block. Mum’s boyfriend before Pete, a lowlife who liked to call himself Wolf, had been a tanks, guns and weapons nut. He’d also been into explosives. He was always reading about them, talking about them, spouting on about how explosives and conflict were the only ways for Noughts to win against the Crosses. Wolf and Mum only split up because he was caught by the police trying to blow up some government building or other and imprisoned for life. But, while he and Mum were together, he’d tried to bond with me by explaining how to make and use explosives. Some of her boyfriends were weird, some were nasty, all were lowlifes. But Wolf? He was in a class down there with Pete. He was a fanatic – and deadly dangerous. Wolf gave off mad, bad and dangerous vibes like a stinky cheese gives off fumes. It was one of the happiest days of my life when he was put away.