But I can’t. The sound pours out of me. He forces his gloved hands into my mouth, compressing my tongue, blocking the sound. He wraps something behind my head. I’m coughing against whatever he’s tied in my mouth but it doesn’t move from between my teeth. My words are just a panicked hum.

‘That’s one of your husband’s socks. He’s up there, lying in blood.’ He yawns, whatever is disguising his voice crackles. ‘And now you’re going for a swim.’

My head shakes, my body convulses violently, ripping against the handcuff.

‘Stay still,’ he says. ‘I’ll take the sock out, but if you scream it’s going straight back in and you’re going in the lake, understand?’

I nod.

‘Good.’

He steps forward again, his boots knocking on the carpet. I draw away, pressed hard against the black iron side of the fireplace.

‘Stay still.’ He reaches out. When the glove touches my cheek I wince. I eye the shotgun behind him, what I would do to have the gun in my hands, aimed at him.

He unties the sock and I cough, resisting the urge to spit.

My body is aching. I squeeze everything inside. ‘Please don’t kill me. You – you can’t.’

He is so close now, the black mask hovering inches from my face. The leather of his gloved finger grazes my cheek. ‘And why is that?’

The panic reaches a crescendo. ‘I’m pregnant,’ I say, a note of hysteria in the chorus of desperation. ‘Please, my baby. You can’t hurt my baby.’

Something in his eyes changes, those two green discs narrow. He draws himself back away from me. Hands on hips. ‘Pregnant.’ It’s not quite a question but it’s clear he wants a response.

‘Yes, six weeks.’

‘Six weeks,’ he utters to himself. He turns away from me, his hands still on his hips. I can hear him breathing.

‘Six weeks,’ he says without turning back.

I find myself fervently nodding. ‘Yes, it’s already got a heart.’ This detail might make him more sympathetic. I was going to tell Cain tonight, it was going to be perfect, the start of our new life and here I am telling this man instead.

He turns back, tilts his head one way then back again like an owl studying its prey. The hanging canister of the gas mask swings below his chin. ‘This changes things.’

A splinter of hope lodges between my ribs. He won’t hurt me, now that he knows about the baby. He thinks, or perhaps he knows that it might be his. ‘Are you sure you’re pregnant, Lina?’

‘It is you, isn’t it, Daniel?’ I say. ‘Why are you doing this?’ The adrenaline, the anger, it’s fading now, cooling, forged to a sharp edge. I need to get away. I need to get Cain to a hospital. Cain.