‘Wait,’ he said and squeezed out of the door, leaving it slightly ajar. The small visible slot of the outside world was an unkempt and weed-strewn garden. She wondered if Gary really would hit her if she screamed. He didn’t radiate criminality. At least, not in the way that Neville Rollason and many other of her clients had. If she had to guess, she would put him down as somewhere on the autism spectrum. She’d done a course on the various types of disability she might come across with ex-offenders, but it was two years ago and she couldn’t recall the details. But anyway, common sense dictated that screaming now wasn’t a good idea. It might make him panic, and he might well kill her without meaning to, just to stop the unsettling noise. Now was not the time to risk that, not if her life wasn’t in imminent danger.

She could hear him outside on the phone to someone. She couldn’t make out what he was saying but from the tone, he was clearly taking orders not giving them. Probably from Verity. The conversation stopped and he squeezed back into the shed, stuffing the mobile into his pocket. He reached up to a shelf and pulled a dull metal object down. He knelt down, looked at her intently for the first time and, grasping her wrist, slid out the triangular blade from the Stanley knife. Leticia started to scream, but his big hand clamped over her mouth. ‘Don’t worry, I’m only cutting the cable ties.’ Gradually he worked round, freeing her from the bed frame. He allowed her to come up to a sitting position and then re-bound her hands with tough plastic baler twine from his pocket.

‘What time is it?’

He looked at his watch ‘9:37 a.m.’

‘And where are we?’

‘No. Don’t ask that.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Gary, did you murder that man Neville Rollason?’

‘No.’