My bare feet hardly made a sound on the floorboards, just a velveteen murmur. The more I edged in, the more I could see: the fire in the living room, little more now than a pile of smouldering ash; the kitchen; a bathroom with a free-standing bathtub and a bucket. No basin. No toilet. The taps on the bath weren’t connected, they were just for show: if Vale wanted to bathe, he’d have to use a water butt I’d seen out front. Maybe a generator heated the water, maybe it didn’t, but one thing was obvious: wherever we were, no one was going to find it.

We were off the grid.

A noise, in the living room: I gripped the rifle even harder and tilted my head to the side slightly, looking past the muzzle. Something popped in the fire – a spark glowing for a second before dying again – and that was when I heard the same noise. It was clearer this time and much easier to place.

A door, banging against its frame in the wind.

A back entrance.

I took another step forward, trying to see into the living room, then stopped again.

A floorboard creaked behind me.

62

Instantly, I swivelled, swinging the rifle around.

The length of the weapon saved my life: Vale couldn’t get close enough with his knife, the long barrel of the rifle – caught in the space between his bicep and his ribcage – keeping him an arm’s length away. He had his knife out in front of him, its blade flashing silver, and he awkwardly slashed it from left to right, off balance and trying to avoid the gun. I felt the knife rip through the cotton of my T-shirt, slicing a shallow cut in my skin, but as I stumbled back, I was alive – I knew it, and so did he.

I fired.

The shot was off target: behind him, wood splintered, a flute of dust erupting out of a door frame. I fired again, and again: I didn’t know where the first shot went, but the second hit him in the chest and the impact sent him staggering away, out of the door, to the veranda. Propelled backwards, he hit the handrail and toppled over it.

I heard a low, dull thump.

Scrambling to my feet, I followed his path out of the house, his blood dotted up the walls around the door, on the floor, over the veranda. When I got to the handrail, he was already on his knees, trying to get to his feet, one hand clutching his chest.

There was an exit wound on his back.

The shot had gone right through him.

‘Stop!’ I shouted, the word carrying all the anger of however long I’d been kept here – the days, weeks, maybe months of living in darkness, alone and abandoned.

He turned.