Nothing happened. They pulled again, pushing down harder. Meggy grabbed the metal plate and shoved it back into the gap between door and frame, sliding it up and down. It met with no resistance.

‘Why won’t it open?’ Meggy screeched, thumping the door.

Elspeth took the plate from her fingers and ran it upwards. It hit metal with a delicate clunk. She ran it downwards and the same happened. Took it out and ran it all the way down to the bottom of the door. Repeated the manoeuvre at the very top. Same. Then she tried pushing the plate into the other locks.

Letting her head fall against the door, eyes closed, hands hanging at her sides, she sighed.

‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. It’s a five-bolt door. It must be on a central system that doesn’t work when you move one catch individually. We can’t get out.’

‘No,’ Meggy growled. ‘I don’t believe you. I think you’re scared and you want to stay in here so you don’t have to fight him. Give me the metal.’

Elspeth did as Meggy asked, taking a step back and letting her work it out for herself. Rushing her would do no good. She looked into the sitting room at the broken, dangling lamp and knew they were just filling in time. Fergus wasn’t going to appreciate the redecoration. No amount of pushing would get the lamp to stay on the ceiling, and they sure as hell weren’t going out through the front door.

‘We have to get out,’ Elspeth whispered. ‘We have to get out of here right now. We can’t survive this.’

She stared at the hole in the ceiling, at the grime around the edge of the ancient plasterboard, at the crumbling fixture.

‘Do you think we could get out through the ceiling and the roof?’ Meggy asked.

Elspeth considered it. ‘It’s too high. We barely reached the light fitting, so doing any serious damage to the ceiling without ladders and tools will be impossible. Gravity’s going to work against us, and in the roof there’ll be thick joists, brickwork, and tiles outside.’ She crossed her arms and looked around the room. ‘How long do you think he’s lived here? I think it’s a long time. The internal fittings are old.’