‘Oh my God.’ I grabbed for it, horrified to see a deep gash in his left palm where the lid and my efforts to break it had caused more damage to him than anything else.

‘For Shaka’s sake! Why didn’t you say something?’ I asked.

‘Like what?’ asked Troy. ‘I’m not going to whine about a couple of cuts and bruises.’

Which made me feel even worse. Maybe Troy was right – I did think about myself too much.

‘We need to clean this wound,’ I said. ‘I’ll pour a little of our water over it—’

‘Are you drunk? What little water we have left is to go down our throats, not over my hand,’ Troy argued.

‘It could become infected—’

‘If we don’t get out of here soon, I’ll be dead long before an infection can finish me off,’ said Troy. If he said that to make me feel better, he failed epically. ‘Come on, Libby. The sooner we get this crate broken up, the sooner we can dig ourselves out of here.’

I nodded, watching as Troy placed his good hand over his bad to steady the crate lid.

‘Ready?’

‘Ready.’

I put my foot back on it and stomped. Troy winced, but managed to keep hold of it this time. Deciding that it was best to do this as fast as possible, I stomped and stomped until the wood cracked and fractured into three pieces. My foot hit the floor, sending a jarring pain up my leg. Whoever built these crates wasn’t mucking about. Troy’s hands were a mess. He slowly wiped them on his trousers, wincing as he did so.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked.

‘I’ll live,’ was all he said.

I was hot, thirsty, smelly and thoroughly pissed off, but I kept it to myself. If Troy could suck it up, then so could I. When we managed to escape and were at the harbour wall, how I wished I’d just pushed him into the river to swim and get help, but the truth was I’d been terrified of being alone with our kidnappers. That’s how I’d lived my life – scared all the time.

But no more. The next chance we got to escape – if there were another chance – I’d make sure that both of us took it, no matter what happened to me. I owed Troy that much at least.

twenty-four. Tobey

‘Sir, there’s a Jon Duba down here at the front entrance. He insists he has an appointment with you, but he’s not on the list.’

‘Get out the way.’ Jon pushed Michael to one side, his face looming into view on my video cam. The fisheye lens and the angle of his face meant I had a clear, unwelcome view up his nostrils. ‘Durbridge, you wanker, you gonna let me in or what?’