Gary seized hold of Leticia, blindfolded her again and marched her carefully down the stairs. Her hands remained tied behind her back as she was manoeuvred out of the house and to the shed. Once there the blindfold was removed but her wrists and ankles were secured again by cable ties to the bed frame. ‘Not so tight, Gary, it hurts,’ she said. The big man responded by loosening her ankles a little but kept the wrists taut.

He was about to put the golf ball in her mouth again when she said: ‘I’m hungry.’

He scratched his head, releasing a cloud of dandruff. ‘I forgot,’ he foghorned. ‘I was going to get you some food.’ He settled for tying the gag around her mouth, told her not to make any noise and slipped out of the shed, closing the door behind him.

He was back within five minutes with a steaming Pot Noodle. ‘This one’s my favourite flavour, but you can have it. Macaroni cheese.’ He untied her, allowed her to sit up, and removed the gag.

‘Don’t you have anything else?’ she asked, wondering how far she could push him. ‘Something with vegetables. Do you have any fruit?’

‘I don’t eat fruit. Mum does sometimes. I do have a Skittles winter fruit pouch in my anorak. And a raspberry doughnut. I like to eat them when I go wildlife spotting.’

That didn’t sound like much of an improvement on the Pot Noodle. ‘Okay, I’ll stop being fussy.’ She gestured for the snack pot and he passed it to her, together with a plastic spoon and fork. She was so hungry she almost burned her mouth gobbling it down. He looked at her as she ate, gradually risking brief eye contact.

‘That was so fast, you could go on mukbang, like Mum.’

She risked a smile and carried on eating.

‘Good, isn’t it? I like Sundays because I always have macaroni cheese flavour. On Monday I have Vietnam street food flavour. The cupboard holds exactly two weeks’ worth, so I know what day it is just by looking at what flavour is next.’

‘You’re very organised, Gary.’

‘Thank you. I mend laptops for my job. Monday to Friday, nine thirty a.m. to four p.m. with half an hour for lunch.’

Leticia needed to coax him to talk but wanted to divert him onto something a little less tedious.

‘What sort of wildlife do you like, Gary?’

A grin lit up his face. ‘I like night creatures most. You don’t see so much during the day. I go to Hurst Meadows by the Thames and use my tent as a hide. I often hear owls.’

‘I adore owls! Two years ago, I went on a trek to northern India and we saw lots of beautiful birds of prey and lots of owls. Some of them were really big.’