I didn’t know where this key was, but I found a rusted adze propped up against the galvanised iron wall. The splintered haft was solid enough, and the head looked dangerous. I took off my thin cardigan, although the air was dry and stagnant on my bare shoulders, and wrapped it around the handle.

“Please stand aside, Gary Damson,” I said, and swung. I missed the lock and punched a ragged tear in the door. The second swing connected.

Trish gave a startled whoop.

The third blow broke the lock. I shook my numbed hands and pulled my cardigan hastily back on. Gary pulled the broken metal loose and pushed the door open.

He felt the wall inside the doorway. “Is there a light here?” he asked. But this room was new to me.

“There’s a torch in the glovebox,” said Trish. But after she went to fetch it, Gary found a switch and pulled it down with a loud thunk. Another bare bulb glowed into life, fading and brightening with the fluctuations of the generator.

In front of us was a concrete-floored corridor walled with piled cages, various sizes, of mesh and chicken wire. The concrete floor was cracked, dirt thick in the ridges left when it was laid.

At the bottom of the first cages were small, limp bundles; the air smelled feathery, over a sweet, desiccated odour of decay. Further back, where the unsteady light cast shifting shadows, birds rustled untidy feathers, crooning protest. I saw dishevelled magpies, a white-eyed crow and, in a despondent huddle, a family of a dozen dirty-grey chatterjacks. Behind them a wedge-tailed eagle sagged, black-bronze feathers tarnished. Such bright beauty, diminished and contained.

“Mitch?” I whispered. At the far end, wire rattled. Gary turned down a path between the cages and we saw.

A wall of heavy weldmesh made a separate enclosure of half the room. The mesh door fit its frame badly but was latched and padlocked. Chicken wire had covered the mesh, once, but now was rusted and frayed. Mitch crouched on the filthy concrete inside.

I couldn’t blame anyone who had known him for not recognising my brother. Mitch was gaunt, with matted hair and a beard I’d never seen him wear. His eyes were hollow, smudged. His bones jutted, the old awkwardness of his frame revealed. His long bare toes were clenched and he held a strip of hessian sacking around his narrow shoulders. It was stained dark and shiny. Our shadows fell on him and he smiled, lips pulling away from yellow teeth.

“You look like a ghost,” he said pleasantly. “Sitting in the lemon tree.”