“Where’s Paula? Frank said she was missing.” I push myself up into a sitting position then drag the rug off my legs and stand up. “Is she? Or was he lying?”

Isaac stands up, too. He inclines his head to the left and groans with relief as his neck cracks. “Paula’s not missing. She’s in the hut next door.”

“Why?”

“She’s detoxing. She’d lost her way a bit,” he adds, before I can ask what detoxing means, “and she needed a bit of time to centre herself, to find her way back.”

“To what?”

“To contentment.”

“Is she locked in the hut?”

“Yes.”

I push the door open. It’s pitch black outside, the only light the soft haze of the moon, swathed in cloud. It’s still night-time, even though it feels like I’ve slept for hours.

“You can run back to the house and sound the alarm if you want to, but Paula wanted to be locked in the hut.”

I can feel the heat of his body as he stands behind me, and the cold of the night air on my face. The house is dark apart from a dull light flickering in the meditation room. Isaac told the men to take Frank to the basement. I have no idea where that even is.

“What’s going to happen to Frank?” I ask.

“We’ll look after him until he’s well enough to leave, and then I’ll escort him to the gate myself.”

I look back at him. “What if someone attacks him on his way back down the—”

The unfinished question hangs in the air. Isaac says nothing, but the edges of his mouth twitch upwards, ever so slightly. Do you care, Emma?

“Take me to see, Paula,” I say.

“I wouldn’t normally interrupt someone’s detox,” Isaac says as he reaches into his back pocket, pulls out a key and inserts it into the lock, “but Paula was due to return to the house today anyway, so …” He shrugs and pulls at the handle.

The stench of faeces and urine hits me the second the door opens, and I cover my nose and mouth with my sleeve.

“It’s just me” – Isaac steps into darkness – “and Emma. She wanted to check you were okay.” He looks back at me. “Wait here for a second.”

The door closes behind him and I’m alone, standing in the darkness outside.

There’s a creaking sound, like floorboards being stepped on, then nothing for a couple of minutes. Finally, I hear the low rumble of a male voice and the shrill peel of female laughter.

“Come in, Emma,” Isaac says.

I push gently at the door.

“I’m sorry about the smell,” Paula says as I step inside.