Then Ryland said Irene’s full name, his dad’s, and Michael’s and gave all the details of where they worked and at what hours. He said that if Liam ever talked about what had happened at Waterbeach station, then his family would end up in a ditch with bullets in their brains. Furthermore, he was to get out of the country and not to come back unless he wanted to see his family in a news story.

Anastasia had been sitting in the parked car the whole time this had been taking place. This was something it took many years for him to process. Sometimes he feels he still hasn’t. Maybe the journey he is taking today is the proof of that.

Her father had finally stopped. Liam had been able to hear his ragged breaths as he gave him one last, half-hearted kick. He heard the sound of the car starting up then, and soon he was alone, gasping with the pain of drawing air into his lungs as his ribs screamed at him.

A van drew up a few blurry minutes later and, at first, he had been filled with hope. But then two men in balaclavas got out and a brand-new terror had stolen what little space he had to breathe. This was it. He was going to die right there.

But after a savage kick to the hip and some mumbled words about shutting his mouth, he had been thrown into the back of the van.

Curling into a pile of sheets that smelled of white spirit, he’d cradled his ribs and panted in panicked fear as the van stopped and started, jogging him about painfully against some tins of paint. After the first hour he’d tried a half-hearted attempt to open the doors, but they were locked, and anyway, the van was travelling fast now, maybe on a motorway.

Another hour later, after he’d somehow slept a little, the doors were thrust open with a harsh clang and all he caught was what sounded like the deep, melancholy bellow of a ship foghorn before a punch knocked him unconscious.

He’d woken up inside a shipping container, his passport and five hundred pounds next to him in a carrier bag. The thought that people had broken into his house to get the passport – where his mum might have walked in – made him feel even sicker, once he was able to process it. It was so … clinical. And how long would that money last?

There was a plastic trench that became his toilet in one corner, and multi-packs of water and, bizarrely it seemed at the time, boxes of crisps and peanuts in another. To this day he could no longer eat processed, salty snacks without feeling the absolute terror he’d felt in the back of that metal coffin.