‘I need the toilet,’ she said and Scarface turned. It was a shock to see his face in the light. His skin was sort of ripped and folded over, shiny in places, rough and chopped up in others. His lips were fat on one side, like sausages, but missing on the other, so that they didn’t close properly and she could see his teeth. He had an ear missing, but hadn’t lost any hair. One of his eyes was cloudy and red, weeping, the other stared at her, clear and brown and perfect.

He nodded, standing up, and Ella got out of bed, walking stiffly on wobbly legs. She followed him across the barn to where there was a bright blue chemical toilet sitting in the corner. It was plastic and had a door in the front, a bit like the Tardis. She opened the door and went inside and she remembered it now. The harsh smell. She’d been here before. She must have come when she was crazy. She sat down and tried not to think about anything.

She couldn’t stop herself thinking about the creature’s face, though. It was so horrible. She wondered if it hurt. Face-ache. That’s what her dad used to call her when he was teasing her. ‘Come on, Face-Ache, finish your breakfast …’

When she came out, Scarface was ready with some food for her. A bowl of porridge. He’d gone to the trouble of laying a place for her at a table with three unmatching wooden chairs. As she ate, she looked over to where the dead animals had been hanging; the rabbits and the squirrel were gone, but a duck was strung up there now, its neck broken.

When she’d eaten the porridge, Scarface gave her a hard-boiled egg in its shell, which Ella cracked and peeled off in one go. He watched her as she ate, like her mum used to.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said. ‘It’s embarrassing.’

Scarface shrugged and wandered off, made himself busy cleaning some animal traps. Ella properly looked at the barn for the first time. Scarface had collected lots of stuff, odd bits of furniture, garden ornaments and statues, a shop dummy dressed in camouflage gear, some bicycles, parts of engines and machinery, garden tools and weapons. There were pictures and mirrors, and even a stuffed boar’s head, fixed to the wall, and stacks of wood, boxes filled with junk. She noticed that there were even some shelves of books.

She didn’t understand it. Grown-ups weren’t supposed to read books and ride bikes. They were no better than dumb animals. Maybe this one had somehow avoided the disease, in which case why was he so chewed up and rotten-looking?