The smell in the air is comforting, the warm orangey tang of wood, the sweet earthy smell of soil. He has to open his eyes, he knows that, but it’s like lifting weights. He has never been good at weight lifting. Give him a swimming pool and his body has the kind of strength that can go on forever. Except … his mind jumps to the awful memory. He was about to swim for help, wasn’t he?

‘Gabriela?’ His voice is weak. He barely recognises it as his own.

‘Tak! Tak!’ She grabs his hand, hers small yet strong.

He manages to peel open his eyes, but his vision is blurred, takes a few moments to focus, to see flickering candles highlighting garden tools, buckets, bags of soil, a sack over the window – a small rowing boat propped against the wall. A boat! If he could gather his strength, this could be their way out of this nightmare.

He’s sure they are in the shed where Mitch found the boat oars earlier. Gabriela is kneeling beside him, her long dark hair falling over her young, pale face, her heavily made-up eyes sticky and smudged. She releases his hand.

He shivers, cold, his T-shirt and boxers soaked through. Pain slams into his head. He cries out as he eases up to a sitting position, and props himself against the shed wall. The blanket drops from his shoulders, settling around his waist.

‘Someone hit you,’ Gabriela says, and it’s clear she knows more English than she let on earlier. ‘I hide you.’

His mind jumps to Alice. He left her in the house, insisting she would be safe. Fear surges through him.

Gabriela’s piercing blue eyes flick towards the closed door. Two bolts are pulled across it. Her hands twist in her lap. ‘I hide here for now. Waiting. Then I hear you cry out. I …’

‘You saved me,’ he says, wincing as he moves.

‘Tak. I save you.’

‘Thank you.’

She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

‘We have to get to Alice,’ he says, unsure how much she understands. ‘Save her too.’

‘Nie. We wait. For now.’

Leon pulls himself to his feet, wincing in pain, his head throbbing, his legs like jelly. ‘Help isn’t coming, Gabriela.’ He makes his way to the door. ‘We have to get to Alice.’

‘Nie!’ Gabriela yells, as he pulls back one of the bolts.

He yanks across the second bolt his hand shaking, opens the door, and staggers into the damp darkness. He turns to ask her to come too, to help him, but she slams the door.

‘Idiota,’ she cries from inside the shed, the loud scraping of the bolts locking him out, jolting the silence. ‘Glupi idiota.’