The van slowed and snagged left, then immediately right. More footsteps, the tuneless squeal of a rusting gate, a door slam, then bouncing along… along what? The van stopped, turned and reversed, the doors opened. He emerged with head bowed; all he saw was a dark concrete passage, the van doors at right angles blocking right and left. He wondered what lay beyond and listened. A rustling, nothing more.

They dragged him along a ribbed concrete floor, a smell of hay and dung. Petrol fumes overtaken by shit. Stables, cows, horses? He’d hardly ever been outside the town or seen an animal beyond the halal butcher. They stopped, pushed open a door and hurled him through it. He heard the click of key in lock – his new prison. The floor was tiny squares of concrete, a bed of hay in one corner, a trough of water in another, a single tap and a bucket below. Soap and a roll of toilet paper. High up a small window, an inch or two ajar, too high and too small to escape through. Though he didn’t know what he’d be escaping from. At least it offered some sense of light and time. Were they watching his observance? He should exaggerate to make sure, make a show of it. The stink of shit was overwhelming – he felt it seeping into his clothes and pores.

‘Watch!’ A voice from outside. The door half-opened, a hand stretched towards him. ‘Gimme your watch.’

He tried to count the minutes and hours, washed and prayed according to his best guesses until, finally, the light through the window began to fade. The door opened; a new face appeared with a slice of bread and bowl of thin soup.

‘Thank you, brother.’

The reply was a punch below the midriff. He recoiled. He looked at the food and tepid liquid and a tear trickled down his cheek. Angrily he brushed it away and began hungrily to eat and drink the meagre ration. When he finished, there remained an emptiness in the pit of his stomach.

Darkness. The sound of a dripping tap on the other side of the wall. He counted the gap – every three seconds without break. It stopped. He breathed deeply, forced himself to relax, closed his eyes and laid his head on the hay. Fatigue seized him and he waited for sleep to end the waking nightmare. As his eyes closed and peace descended, the drip restarted – a loud, metallic ping. He sat up with a jolt, nerves crushing him. Was the timing deliberate? Yet there was no noise, no sounds of other humans, no breathing beyond his now hurried exhalations. He looked up and around for cameras, both overt and concealed. Nothing. Some kind of lamp outside the window cast a shaft of light on the opposite wall. He tried to close his eyes to darken the reflection. Another drip. Then he woke up, cold and cramped.