‘You’ll find out.’ Someone opened the van’s rear door and I was pushed inside to find two narrow little cages made of fine steel mesh. I tried to protest but the sound wouldn’t come and a slender young man who had been waiting inside grabbed my leather bag, before shoving me hard into the far cage. The van door slammed closed and for a moment we were in perfect darkness. Then a very dim blue light came on above his head. Under its pale glow, he flicked open the bag’s tarnished brass clasp and turned it all upside down. My purse and the handkerchief dropped out. I prayed that neither the book nor the card box that I had taken from Hazel’s room would fall out from under the stiff base where I had slipped them.

The guard opened the purse and turned his nose up, as if its contents weren’t even worth pocketing. ‘Load of shit,’ he muttered, tossing it aside.

‘Please,’ I said. He just snorted. ‘Why are –’ He smacked a baton across the steel and the vibrations went through me, making my teeth grind. He took hold of a hand grip set in the roof, flicked a switch and the light was off again. ‘Please, are you NatSec?’ I said, just wanting to know what was happening. The only answer I got was the sound of the engine gunning, and the wheels turning on the tarmac.

We bounced along through potholes for a while before turning this way and that. I tried to keep my mind focused, but the panic was rising and I had to fight a surge of sickness as I braced myself against the two sides of the mesh cage. The floor of the van shook hard under me and I gave in, slumping down. It was all a whirlpool.

We stopped from time to time, once coming to what seemed to be an emergency halt that slammed me against the side of the cage. The guard must have been thrown too, because he mumbled something angry under his breath. And then, finally, after what must have been half an hour, we slowed and made a series of small manoeuvres.

I stood up, trying to find some sort of purchase on the wire mesh, but didn’t dare say anything. The back door was opened and I had wild thoughts of somehow breaking free and running out into the darkness, although I knew it was impossible. Instead, I watched the young man squeeze out, his feet clunking on the floor as he went, and wondered if I would be dragged from the vehicle, to some unknown building like so many others were said to have been. But the guard’s place was instead taken by another, bigger man who clambered inside before closing the door behind him, making everything black again.