Fin’s lips feel rubbery. He isn’t sure if the words are coming out or if he’s just reciting them in his head. He tries to pull himself up but a sharp pain at his wrists causes him to cry out. He pushes his face closer to his hands. Feels a point of cold metal graze his cheek. Clarity hits like a fist. There’s a nail through his wrists, a gleaming metal tip emerging from the back of his left hand. His hands are fastened together as if in prayer.

Fin gasps, fear pulsing through him. Little mewing noises escape his lips. He wriggles backwards, his back touching the cold steel hardness of the wall. Swivels around at the contact and feels the rope bite into the flesh of his neck. He understands, suddenly. A picture flashes in his mind – a scene from a film. His feet are tied together and the rope is around his neck. He’s been dumped on a hard floor in a darkened room, his hands in front of him, stapled at the wrist. If he tries to kick with his legs, the noose will close around his throat.

‘Lilah …’ he says, and this time the voice is real. There is something snake-like about the tone, a soft hiss to his words. ‘Lilah, please tell me you’re safe …’

‘Safe?’ comes a voice, somewhere in front of him. ‘Where’s safe in this world, eh?’

Fin squirms back, the sweat on his body turning to ice-water.

‘Hello … who’s there … Dad?’

‘Not yet, boy,’ comes the reply. It’s emotionless. Joyless. The words sound as though they have been programmed into something lifeless; spoken by an automaton.

‘What’s happening?’ begs Fin, trying to keep still. The pain is everywhere, an agony beyond enduring. He can’t feel his hands but now he knows what has been done to him he is fixating on the wound at his wrists. He can feel nothing where the nail has gone through his skin and bones. He feels a wetness on his forearms but there is just a cold lifelessness at the place where he should hurt most. ‘Is Lilah here?’ he whispers, and a wisp of chemical-tasting ash lands upon his tongue.

‘She’s not my concern,’ comes the voice. ‘Took her pain like a proper fighter, so she did. Didn’t cry. Must be how it goes in your family, eh? The women are the strong ones. The men snivel like kittens.’

Fin feels his cheeks burn. Chokes on a sob and feels himself lose control of his bladder. His face burns as the sudden rush of urine soaks his school trousers, his front suddenly hot, and quickly cold. There’s a little laugh from the darkness.

‘Don’t worry, boy – there’ll be no shame after,’ comes the voice. ‘They won’t know you pissed yourself. The sea will wash it away.’

Fin tries to be brave. Fills himself with images of his mammy. Of his dad. ‘What is it you want?’ he asks, his throat agony – his larynx bulging against the rope.