Malik laughed. ‘I got caught in one of their traps one afternoon when I was out foraging. An animal trap. Big one. Nearly broke my leg. They found me that night. Like everyone else they weren’t sure what I was – a grown-up or a child. I refused to speak to them. I was done with talking. In the end they decided I was just a kid and they felt guilty they’d trapped me. You know, they were, like, sorry for me, the way I looked, how badly mashed up I was, my leg all bruised and bloody. And I hadn’t been eating well. What with that and the attacks of the fever and everything, I was just skin and bone. Skin and bone.’

‘So what did they do?’

‘They took me in. Looked after me. They seemed to like doing all that first-aid, doctor-type stuff. They were good at it actually. I learnt a lot from them. In fact I learnt everything from them. Except for what I’d got from Tyler, I suppose, which was how to attack like an animal.’

‘You’re not an animal,’ said Ella, and Malik laughed softly and hugged her.

‘Thanks for reminding me. I don’t know, maybe Waggers and Brian and the rest thought I was. They liked animals, when they weren’t hunting them. They had horses. Three of them. Used to go out hunting on them. Tomasz taught me how to ride. He was really good on a horse. Showed me all sorts of tricks. I was rubbish at first, but I got the hang of it. There were more animals on the farm then. They’d collected them – a pig, a goat, the chickens, of course. They showed me how to look after them.’

‘What happened to the other animals?’

‘We slaughtered the pig for the winter and the goat was killed one night when some dogs got in. She was a mean old ratbag. Killed a couple of them before they got her. The horses died too. They’re useless, horses; they get so many diseases, they injure themselves easily, they eat the wrong things. Two of them died of some kind of horse flu thing. The third broke its leg and Tomasz shot it. But for a while it was like a proper farm.’

‘Weren’t there any women?’ asked Ella.