I pointed to the far wall, illuminated by the solitary, now-flickering light bulb, but only just. With Libby’s help, I hobbled over to it. The ground there was soft dirt and nothing else. Thumping with the side of my fist against the wall, the dull thud indicated it was solid. I’d need a pneumatic drill to get through that. But how far down did this particular wall descend? Half a metre? A metre? More? I looked around, trying to get my bearings. When we managed to escape and were being marched back at gunpoint, I’d noticed the basement door was on the left of the building and this house was next to an end-of-terrace. The basement ran directly beneath the kitchen, so I was relatively sure that this was an external wall leading to the back garden of the house. Would it be possible to dig through to the garden?

Who was I trying to kid?

Mostly myself, I guess.

The direction didn’t matter. We’d die of thirst long before we managed to tunnel out of here. And the ground might be soft in the cellar, but the more we dug, the more compact it would become. The candle flame of an idea flickered and died. So much for that then. I turned, only to find Libby standing right behind me. And I mean right behind me. I plastered on a smile, like I’d just stumbled across a set of power tools, a fridgeful of food and fizzy drinks and a functioning bathroom.

‘Dig where? Troy, speak to me! I’m not a mind-reader. Have you found a way out of here?’ Anticipation threaded in and out of Libby’s voice.

And that look in her eyes … the light of hope. How could I extinguish it?

‘The dirt is soft here,’ I replied, toeing the earth with the tip of my shoe. ‘I was thinking maybe we could burrow under this external wall and escape through the back garden without being seen.’

‘Will that work?’ Libby’s eyebrows drew together in a frown.

I shrugged. ‘No idea. But doing nothing definitely won’t get us anywhere.’

‘What if we dig and find the foundation underneath is made of concrete?’

‘Then we’ll be no worse off,’ I lied.

Silence.

Libby smiled and nodded. ‘Let’s do it.’

‘Help me break up one of the crate lids. We can make shovels out of the lengths of wood that will help speed things up.’

Libby was already turning away and heading for the nearest crate. I eyed the one-quarter-filled litre bottle of water at the foot of the stairs. That wasn’t going to last long and, if we exerted ourselves digging, we’d get through it that much faster. But Libby, like me, needed to be doing. And, if we were going to die anyway, then better to die trying. Better to die doing. Better to die with hope than with none at all.