Had he been able to do anything to help, he would have done. It was practicality. It was the need to keep one of them safe a little longer to get help. Not fear. Not fear for his own safety. No more than any other person would have felt, anyway. Warm water washed down over his cheeks and penetrated the edges of his lips. They were still alive. There was still hope. While they were crying, they were breathing. Meggy was tougher than she knew, and Elspeth … Elspeth needed medical help and Xavier knew it. But perhaps if Fergus was moving them, then something dramatic must have changed. He told himself they were much more likely to be found outside the house. Really, they were better off than him now. As long as they weren’t simply being brought back up the stairs to the flat. Although at least then someone would be there to help pull him out.

Xavier focused on regulating his breathing and listened. He could hear the pipes in the walls delivering hot water for the morning and footsteps heavy on the stairs. Those were getting fainter. Going down to the ground floor, not up towards him. Banging, half a second behind each step. He was pulling their still-bound bodies down the stairs, Xavier realised. Elspeth wasn’t up to that. Her arm was undoubtedly dislocated from her shoulder and the wet rasping sound as she breathed was almost inevitably an injury to her lungs or her throat, and either of those possibilities raised the spectre of internal bleeding.

A door closed downstairs, then another, much more distant.

What was he doing to them? If he were planning on killing them, why not just do it where they lay? Too messy, too much evidence. Perhaps he was moving them to a bath, where the blood could be flushed down the plug or onto plastic sheeting, which could be wrapped and put straight into the boot of his car.

Stop it, he yelled inside his head. You’re as bad as him. You’ve killed them already.

More footsteps in the lower part of the house. A pause. The sound of furniture being dragged. Silence. Footsteps, much slower this time, walking away. A door shut, gently, carefully. He imagined he could almost hear the click of it in the latch.

There was a new sound below him now. Like waves rolling onto a beach on a stormy day. A soft, roaring whoosh. Then crackling and a sense that the air had come alive, of …