The front door banged and Danny jumped up and ran to the window. It looked like both men were leaving. He could only just make them out through the murky glass but there was the sound of two car doors slamming. Danny had been right; the van was a Ford Transit and he watched it drive down the uneven lane they’d taken to get there, turn left, and disappear out of sight.

Presumably, Danny was alone unless there’d been someone else in the house waiting for them to arrive. Dare he risk shouting? The desire to get out of that stark filthy room was greater than his fear of a third person being around, so he shouted as loudly as he could, banging on the door until his fists were sore. There was no response which probably meant he was alone.

Danny scanned the room again, searching for a possible way of escape. The door was old but solid and he knew there were bolts on the outside. The window wouldn’t open – he’d seen the nails and if he smashed the glass he would still have the problem of the mesh outside, which looked rather heavy duty and was probably nailed down like the window frame.

With such a bare room and both ways of exit ruled out, Danny felt the tears sting his eyes once more. He sniffed, wiping his nose on his parka sleeve, and swallowed hard to stop himself crying. A bare light bulb hung from the ceiling and when he flipped the switch it was a relief to find it worked. It was bad enough being there, but the dark would only add to his misery.

By 7.30pm it was completely dark outside and Danny had been alone for over two hours. Finally, after failing to come up with an escape plan, he sat on the mattress and watched a spider spinning a web in the corner of the window. Danny needed to use the bucket as a toilet, assuming that was why it was there, and he was feeling hungry and cold.

Suddenly, headlights danced across the wall and the sound of an engine in the drive told him his captors were returning. Should he be relieved? No, he was terrified, his heart pounding wildly. Being alone was so much better than having those men in the house. Would they hurt him?

Danny sniffed back the tears and listened as the van doors opened, then slammed closed. He found he was holding his breath, listening, but the voices were just noise, the words indistinguishable. Danny thought one of the voices sounded like a woman. He heard them enter the house and wondered if they’d come upstairs to check on him – afraid they would but somehow needing to know more about his captors – to be able to look at their faces and assess what his fate might be.