Another weapons search soon proved fruitless: there was nothing close by, nothing serrated or edged, and certainly nothing to compete with a rifle.

I’d have to improvise.

Reaching over the side of the veranda, I scooped up a handful of hard, crumbly earth and stepped back, beside the door, so that I would be behind it when it opened. Delaying for a moment, trying and failing to still my pulse, I took a breath and wondered if it would have been better to have run, and taken my chances among the trees. But it was too late now.

I launched the dirt up, on to the roof.

As soon as it hit the wood, it scattered and spread, a noise like waves crackling across a shingle beach, and then there was movement – instant, quick – from inside.

The door creaked open.

I turned, my back against the wall, and watched it inch out in my direction. It had no glass in it, but two of the wooden slats had slightly warped and, between them, I glimpsed the vague hint of a man.

A hand came to the end of the door, fingers along the edge of it, holding it in place, and then the barrel of the rifle drifted into view, pointing down towards the veranda. Come on. A bit more. A creak sounded and he took another step forward, more of the gun barrel extending out past the door: the fore-end, the tip of the scope.

More.

At the bottom of the door, I could see his boot now.

Halfway up, the zip on his coat.

A bit more.

A smooth, unblemished hand on the fore-end.

Come on, more.

I needed to trap his arm in the door.

Force him to drop the rifle.

More.

Instead, he stopped, as if he’d seen something.

I looked out at the forest, trying to imagine what, but all that stared back at me was the twisted darkness behind every trunk.

And then I realized something.

I turned, looking through the warped slats of the door.

It wasn’t something in the forest he was looking at.

It was me.

61

I didn’t have time to think.

As soon as I saw the flash of an eye between the slats, I smashed into the door with my shoulder. It snapped back, whipping on its hinges, and Vale got jammed between the door and the frame.

Grabbing the door handle, I yanked it towards me and smashed into him again. It gave him a fraction of a second to try and move, to retreat even further inside, away from the door, which he did – but not all of him made it. I crunched the door into his arm, just below the elbow. He yelled out in agony, his grip instantly loosening on the rifle.

I kicked at it – his hand, his wrist, the gun. Anything.

The rifle spun off and hit the veranda floor.