Pressing her head back against the wooden shaft of the rake, Fran rubs her wrists against one of the prongs. ‘She wasn’t my physiotherapist; she was my sister. My name isn’t Geraldine, it’s Fran.’

‘Fran.’ There’s a beat, then Tom says, ‘Yes … yes of course you are. Yes, that makes sense.’

‘Was what Renata said true?’ Fran asks, changing the subject. ‘Were you planning on running away together?’

‘Yeah, we were.’

Fran uses one of the rake’s prongs to pierce the tape on her wrists. ‘Did Jenna know you were married?’

She can feel the tape start to give and moves her hands up and down more fervently.

‘No,’ Tom says quietly.

‘You didn’t tell her?’

He sighs. ‘She asked me outright once if Kate and I were in a relationship and I lied. We were getting really close at that point and I didn’t want her look at me differently, or pull away. I was so attracted to her, and not just physically. I regret the fact that I lied; every single day since.’

Fran sighs. She wants to like Tom, or at least to understand what her sister saw in him, but there’s something cloying and self-pitying about him that gets under her skin.

‘Have you got your hands untied yet?’ she asks, changing the subject.

‘No.’

‘Well get a move on or Renata’s going to take that poker to my head again.’

There’s a pause, then Tom says, ‘Do you have any regrets, Fran?’

Images flash through her mind – Gunnar, the backpacking trip to Asia with a friend that she turned down in favour of doing her PGCE, the slightly larger flat in London she didn’t buy because it would have stretched her budget, not standing up to her mother and for not letting Jenna talk when she’d needed Fran most.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Of course I do. Anyway, oooooh.’ She tentatively rolls her shoulders forward and feels the sweet sting of her muscles stretching. ‘I’ve got my hands free. Shuffle this way and I’ll untie yours.’

Fran gets to her feet and stretches out her body. From Tom’s low groans beside her she’s pretty sure he’s doing the same.

‘Right,’ she says. ‘This is the plan. I sit at the bottom of the stairs, with the tape back on, or at least it needs to look that way. You need to be against that back wall over there’ – she points into the darkness – ‘beyond the stairs, where Renata won’t be able to see you.’

‘Okay.’

‘Face the wall and pretend to be dead. When she tells us to get up, or move or whatever, you stay completely still. Then, when she comes over to check on you, I use that plank of wood you found and I hit her round the back of her head. Then we get the hell out of here.’

Tom doesn’t reply.