The door slams. The car jumps into action. Already, she is closer to Josie, and tension disperses like smoke in the wind. Ball Cap is unaware of this and forces her off the seat, into a lying position on the floor, face down. Her nose thuds the carpet, and it’s this impact that ejects a yelp from her lips. Ball Cap, though, misreads yet again and jams his feet hard into her back and tells her she’s going nowhere. Amid the maelstrom of emotions, her brain finds opportunity to recognise the same thick northern accent from the phone calls.

At first, the engine is loud, the turns sharp, but soon everything calms down as the vehicle exits a perceived danger zone. Ball Cap starts to speak around a wad of gum in his mouth.

‘No police, you silly mare. Remember?’

‘Where’s my daughter? A neighbour called the police. I’m sorry.’

‘You didn’t half cause a hassle, woman. You were supposed to wake up in the morning to find a nice little note in your girl’s bed, and then we’d go do this all quiet, no problem. But your bloke, what the hell was he doing up? Who’s awake at that time of the morning, eh?’ He seems to find this funny. ‘And no cops, that was meant to be part of it. Scrambled that one up, too, didn’t you? You’d have had your kid by now, so you went and messed up, didn’t you? Caused us to get our thinking caps on. Are we going to have any more spanners in the works?’

Josie’s pyjamas are still in her hands; she forces them into her face, inhaling her smell. The pain in her nose vanishes.

‘That’s better,’ the other guy, the driver, says. Dominic Watson-Bruce, she remembers. She is glad she hasn’t yet seen his face, or him hers.

Ball Cap turns her head with a fist in her hair, so she can see something his other hand is holding close to her face.

‘This was a wasted note. I hate waste, so now—’

She sees a piece of paper the size of a postcard. Scrawled words:

WE HAVE YOUR KID. NO POLICE. TELL SCHOOL SHE’S SICK. WILL CALL YOU AT TEN

‘You’ll eat it.’

And he’s serious because he forces the paper against her mouth, pressing so hard it hurts her gums and lips, and she knows there’s no point in trying to refuse. So she opens her mouth, and accepts his rough fingers forcing the paper inside. She blocks her throat with her tongue, unsure if he’s going to force the ransom note all the way.

‘Don’t be a twat,’ Dominic says.