She hears a crackling sound she can’t recognise. Then his fingers are back, but in her hair this time. He turns her head. Something before her eyes, which he wants her to look at. So she looks, to keep him mellow.

A laminated sheet of paper, creased, rippled, old, like a keepsake. A newspaper article: the Sunderland Echo. The headline is: ‘Arsonist Strikes Again.’

Before she can read more, it’s gone. Pre-empting him, she turns her face. Back to the pyjamas. Back to Josie.

‘That’s me. Six infernos in parked cars, and six dead kids left by shopping mothers. Snuffing out little kids gives me a buzz. So don’t think I don’t have it in me to kill your kid. Okay? You mess this up, try any tricks, I’ll go and snap her bones until she’s got five hundred, never mind three hundred and sixty-five.’

Fourteen

The sneezing noise seemed to wake him up. But all was still black. His head was heavy and he couldn’t lift it. He felt something on top of him, some kind of thick, coarse fabric, like the underside of a carpet. That sneezing noise again. Somewhere here in the dark with him.

‘Josie?’ he tried to shout, but it came out only as a croak.

‘Daddy, I don’t like this dark. Where is this place?’

He had no idea, was aware only of a rumbling noise, a vibration, and the heavy carpet, and the dark.

And Josie. He could hear his girl crying.

‘Josie, are you all right, choc?’ he said, maximum effort into making the words sound no different to all the times he’d returned from work to high-five his daughter.

‘I’m sorry for being naughty, Daddy. Can I go back to my bedroom?’

He couldn’t stop a moan emerging from between his lips. He tried to get up, again, but couldn’t.

‘Mummy didn’t mean to shout and send you to bed, Josie. Everything is okay.’ But it wasn’t. He could remember high-fiving Josie after work, but he had no idea how he’d got to wherever this place was.

‘A man carried me out of bed. He said to keep quiet. Is it all right to talk now? I don’t like it here. I want my bedroom. Is this a bed sheet? It’s too heavy. Get it off.’

He remembered a portion. Shapes. Men. Darkness. Josie. They took Josie, and now they’d taken him, too. That in mind, the rumbling and vibrating made sense, even if little else did. A vehicle, something big, like a van. Maybe a carpet van. He and Josie, taken in a van.

‘I want to turn the light on. Turn it on, please, Daddy.’

‘We can’t just yet, Josie. Because… you remember, the earthquake at Blackgate Prison?’

‘Yes. From Batman. Did we have an earthquake?’