The kidnapper stamps her back hard enough to hurt. ‘Hey, answer. It’s the cop shop where you have the right to remain silent, not here. Here you have the right to watch your kid’s eyes get flushed down the bog.’

‘I keep it stored away at my father’s!’ she yells. ‘Please, I will get it. All I want is my daughter. You can have it, I promise. There won’t be any tricks. Please. My little lady. She’s everything to me.’

Silence for a second. She imagines the Ogres looking at each other. Trying to decide what to do. They will believe her, or they won’t and Josie will suffer.

‘Think this is bullshit?’

Dominic’s question, so Ball Cap is the man in control of her very world. If he says yes, Josie will—

‘Doubt it. She knows we’d send her a bone a day in the post for a year.’

‘People only have two hundred odd bones, not three hundred and sixty-five.’

‘Babies and kids have more.’

‘What, three hundred and sixty-five exactly? That don’t make sense. Where do these bones go?’

‘Go? I don’t know. Maybe they shed them. I read it. So where is this thing?’

Silence. Then another stamp on her back, and she realises the final question was for her.

‘My father’s garage. At his house. I can get it. I will get it, I promise.’ Again, she’s survived a terrible and dangerous moment, but something inside her decides to push: ‘But not until I see my daughter. You have to take me to her.’

‘You can see a piece of her every day for a year,’ Ball Cap says. She fights the urge to argue.

‘Internet says here,’ Dominic says, ‘that babies have three hundred. Not three hundred and sixty-five.’

‘Aha, good point. Give me your phone.’

This time she knows the words are for her. Before she can respond, though, his hands are on her. She buries her face in Josie’s pyjamas and expects his fingers to go between her legs, and she doesn’t even care because it might mellow him. But they don’t. They quickly find the phone and retreat.

‘You should have got that straight away,’ Dominic says. ‘What if she called the police? Open line, could have been tracing it all this time.’

‘Nah, it’s not on call. Anyway, you’ll like this cool idea I just had. So, missus, we’re gonna go get this damn Forcefield thing. Tell me about the place. Everything a burglar needs to know to get in there. Me and you are going in. Miss out a vicious guard dog and I’ll feed your kid to my own dog.’