There are other trails the Guards might follow. The real Lux was a teaching assistant—a profession I know nothing about—in the mathematics department—a subject I know nothing about. I thought I’d only have to impersonate him for thirty seconds before clubbing Fred in the back of the head with a hammer. I didn’t think I’d need to fool five other people for hours at a time, maybe days.

Did the Guards know Lux’s full name? Maybe not. But if they see ‘Shannon Luxford wanted for false imprisonment’ on the news, they’ll put two and two together.

Fifty yards behind the main house, slightly uphill, there’s another building. A barn, with metal walls and a huge padlock on the front door. Three big buckets are stacked next to the door, with organic dog food labels on the lids.

When I was homeless, I often broke into buildings like this for shelter overnight. No need to pick the locks; a pair of tin snips would cut right through the wall. But I guess no one is out here looking for computers to steal.

‘This place used to be a hobby farm.’ Fred pulls on some gloves and searches through a ring of keys as we approach. ‘That fenced-off area was the pig pen, and this was the slaughterhouse. But rumours surfaced about cruelty to the animals. Nothing was ever proven, but people stopped buying meat from the farm. Pretty soon the owners were desperate to sell. I got it cheap.’ He looks pleased with himself.

‘Uh-huh,’ I say.

‘I renovated the house pretty substantially. But this part has stayed largely the same.’

The back door of the house bangs shut. I turn and see Donnie running up the hill towards us, carrying a SIG Sauer P320.

I freeze, but Fred still seems relaxed. ‘No rush,’ he tells Donnie. ‘They’re not going anywhere.’

Donnie catches up to us and claps me on the shoulder with a big hand. ‘You excited?’

‘Hell yeah.’ My heart flutters. Why has he brought a gun?

As we reach the slaughterhouse, I hear something inside.

A chorus of cracked voices shrieking, ‘Help us! Somebody, please! Help!’

I stop dead. Fred’s videos come from all over the world. I had wondered if he made some of them himself, but on the long drive here it never occurred to me that he would have live prisoners.

Fred takes a Halloween mask out of his pocket and unfolds it. It’s a witch’s face, with wrinkled grey skin, a long warty nose and white hair like spider silk.

‘I keep telling them that we’re miles from anywhere,’ he says. ‘Nobody can hear them. But they don’t believe me.’

‘Ha.’ I can hardly breathe.

Fred pulls the witch’s face on over his own, and hands a second mask to me. A vampire, with arched eyebrows and fake blood dribbling from rubber fangs. ‘Put this on.’