Brooke began to cry. Started fumbling to put the bandage back on. Ed helped her. He seemed happier to be doing something. It was a distraction. She’d come on too strongly. Should have taken her time. He must be freaked out by all this.

‘What are you doing here anyway, Ed?’ she asked. ‘Who were you looking for? Who were you expecting to find?’

She knew the answer. It was going to be DogNut. But she didn’t know how she was going to tell him the bad news.

‘We’ve got some other kids with us,’ Ed explained. ‘But they’ve stayed back where it’s safe until we’ve checked everything out.’

‘What kids?’

‘We were helping them, well, helping one of them, to find his sister.’

‘And you think she might be here? What’s her name?’

‘Ella.’

Brooke put a hand to her mouth, shook her head slowly.

‘Not Sam,’ she said. ‘Please say it’s not Sam.’

‘Yeah, it’s Sam. Why? Do you know Ella? Is she here then?’

‘She was here. If you’d only come a day earlier. She left this morning.’

Ed looked confused, trying to take this all in.

‘What do you mean, she left?’ he asked.

One of Ed’s friends came over, the one he’d introduced as Kyle, a big lump of a kid with a bony head and big ears.

‘Come on, boss,’ he said. ‘You can get loved up later. Let’s get inside, yeah?’

‘In a minute,’ Ed snapped, and Kyle raised his eyebrows, surprised at Ed’s anger. ‘Can’t you see I’m talking here?’

‘Yeah, sorry, boss.’ Kyle backed away and returned to the gatehouse.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Ed, his voice shaking. ‘Where’s she gone?’

Brooke told him. How Maeve had taken Ella and the others and headed for the countryside. Ed became more and more agitated the more he heard, looking off down the road as if he might see them.

‘I need to go after them,’ he said, gabbling, his mind racing. ‘Sam’s not going to take this. If you knew what he’s been through. We need to get supplies. And I’ll need to go back and tell Sam. Jesus, how long ago was this? What sort of start did they get? If we hurry …’

‘Ed … Ed …’ Brooke put her hand on his arm. ‘Slow down. You can’t just go charging off. You’ll never catch them. They’ve been gone ages. You’ll need to properly plan …’

Ed sagged, deflated, like someone had just punched him in the gut. For a moment he looked like a little boy, a very tired and miserable little boy. Broken. Then he shook it off. Sighed. Straightened up. Forced all emotion out of his twisted face.

‘Story of my life,’ he said flatly. ‘I should have known this was never going to end.’