Discovery had seemed certain until Fergus had begun talking to the poor soul whose lifeless body was providing him with camouflage, then there had been the sweet relief of disappearing footsteps and blissful silence. The deep breath he’d finally been able to drag into his lungs, full of the cells of dusty bones or not, was nectar.

‘Fuck,’ he’d muttered to himself, letting his head drop onto a wooden beam and resting.

Somehow, bizarrely, in the gloom, regardless of the stress and adrenaline, he’d begun to fall asleep. That wouldn’t do. He needed to get into position to exit when an opportunity came. For now, he’d avoided Fergus. Mission accomplished. But he hadn’t thought further ahead. When your sole intent was to survive the next hour, consequential thinking wasn’t the priority.

He managed to bend himself at the waist, then lifted his legs further away, pushing them towards the rear corner of the space. It wasn’t until he began trying to crawl forward again that he found himself tethered from behind. Tugging at each leg in turn, he became frantic. Finally giving in and hauling his upper body back down to meet his ankles, the pitch-black in the corner behind him, he felt down his leg until his fingertips reached his right ankle. It was wedged firmly into an acute angle formed by two joists and twisted horribly. He could neither reach it in the confined space, nor drag the leg out.

‘Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks.’ Xavier thumped the nearest rafter, achieving nothing more than adding a painful bruise to his knuckles to his list of problems.

From the floor below came Fergus’ voice, issuing commands, complaining, swearing. Then the shush – halt – shush – halt of heavy objects being dragged for short periods. Elspeth cried out and Meggy’s tears added to his misery. He was just feet away from the edge of the hole, with no hope of getting there to see what was happening. He wanted to call out to them, but that was only going to remind Fergus that he existed – a fact he seemed to have entirely forgotten for now.