He launches me upwards again and I reach up with my right hand. My arm goes through the window but I slide down again before I can hook my armpit over. The sill scrapes my forearm as I slip back down.

“Fuck.”

Johan wraps his arms around my legs and lowers me to the ground. He gestures for me to stay where I am, then edges along the wall and peers round the corner of the house. A couple of seconds later he inches back to me.

“People are starting to drift away from the party. We need to hurry.”

“We’ll have to break the window.” I glance over towards the log pile. “If we hold something soft against the window, it will help deaden the sound.”

Johan follows my gaze, indecision written all over his face as the drumming increases and Kane starts singing again. I don’t wait for him to reply; instead, I sprint towards the log pile, grab the biggest one I can carry and run back to the window.

“Take off your T-shirt then hold this. Careful, there are a couple of rusty nails sticking out of the side.” I wait for him to pull off his T-shirt then exchange it for the log and hold the thin material up to the window, just below the catch. The drumming grows louder, Kieran sings and a woman screams with excitement. “Now!”

There’s a dull thud, a cracking sound and the tinkle of falling glass. Johan taps at the T-shirt and more glass shatters and falls away, littering the floor of Isaac’s study. I pull the T-shirt away. There’s a fist-sized hole in the window. Wordlessly, Johan takes the T-shirt from me, wraps it around his hand and wrist and slips his arm through the hole. He twists his hand around so he can reach the catch. A second later, the window flies open and he swings himself up and through it.

I keep one eye on what’s happening through the study window, one eye on the corner of the house. Every sound from inside Isaac’s study is amplified as Johan drags the desk away from the rug, the legs screeching on the wooden floor. Come on, come on, come on.

He rolls up the rug and opens the hatch then disappears into the hole.

Come on, Johan. Come on.

I hear the footsteps just as Johan’s blonde head pops up through the hatch, and then a cloud of cigarette smoke drifts towards me, followed by Gabe.

“Gabe!” I throw myself at him as he rounds the corner, and wrap my arms around his neck. The weight of my body knocks him off balance and he stumbles backwards, away from the window.

“Emma?” He pushes me away and looks me up and down. A wry smile lifts the side of his mouth. “Are you pissed?”