he Cadillac slows, the high whine of asphalt replaced by the crunch of roadside gravel, and then there’s nothing. Apart from some residual ticking, even the engine is silent. Danny stops his teeth from chattering long enough to hear a few muffled words of conversation from up front. He doesn’t get all of it – he’s too cold and he has a pounding headache and he’s nauseous and he desperately needs to pee again – but he catches the gist of what they’re saying. They’re afraid they’ve lost Stephanie – or rather, they’re afraid that Stephanie has lost them.

Jeremiah suggests they loop round, to see if they can pick her up again, but Gant is against the idea. He doesn’t want to make it obvious that they’re luring her in. They talk about this for a few minutes, with Jeremiah coming up with suggestions like an eager employee trying to impress his boss. Gant, for his part, grows increasingly irate, and Jeremiah eventually gets the message and stops suggesting stupid things.

There’s movement, and then a door opens – only one – and someone gets out. Gant. His footsteps move along the side of the car, and stop somewhere close to Danny’s head.

“I need to pee,” Danny calls.

There’s the sharp bang of a fist on the trunk. “Shut up,” says Gant, and a moment later Danny hears an approaching car. He catches a brief sweep of headlights through the cracks of the trunk, and then the car slows. It isn’t Stephanie. Stephanie wouldn’t pull up to where Gant was standing. He hears a voice, a man’s voice, saying something, possibly offering to help in some way, and then he jumps as three gunshots ring out.

Gant’s movements are unhurried as he gets back in the Cadillac. The engine fires up and they pull out on to the road and continue on.

Danny doesn’t need to hear the conversation to know that that was a sign for Stephanie to follow.

A half-hour later, he can’t hold it any longer. He unzips and pees into the carpet under the latch, the sense of relief momentarily overwhelming the bizarre sense of shame that threatens to engulf him. When he’s finished, he zips up and shuffles back as far as he can, his jacket held up over his nose and mouth. He tests the air every few minutes until he can’t smell anything rank, and begins to breathe normally again.

They haven’t bothered tying him up after the gas station. They know he’s beaten. He knows he’s beaten. The acceptance is sudden and unexpected, but no less valid than the thought that follows after. He’s beaten now, at this particular moment in time. But once they let him out of this trunk? Once he’s got his strength back? Then he has a chance again.