She tried to sleep away the dead hours, to sleep away time. When the restlessness came she walked round and round until her legs ached. She tapped her knuckles on the walls, searching for hollow sections, and concentrated hard to hear anything other than her own breathing. She couldn’t help listening for sounds that didn’t exist. Without daylight it was hard to know how many days she had lost. Hours ran into each other and were defined only by sleep and exercise. And listening. For long periods of time she watched the door. Her own blood had dried like rust on the light grey metal. It was a long time since she banged on the door, but her fingers were still red raw, as if the skin wouldn’t heal in the enclosed space and the darkness. He had offered to put plasters on them, but she had rolled herself into a ball and turned to face the wall, like a hedgehog with its prickles out. The last thing she wanted was for him to touch her.

Lelle sipped his coffee and looked at the bent heads of the students in front of him. All that could be heard was the scraping of pens. There must be a trend for long hair, judging by the number of boys constantly pushing it out of their faces. The girls were more particular. One of them had pink highlights in her fringe, another had a wide, shaved strip just above her ear. They were so young and healthy and bored that it made him catch his breath.

Lina was older than them now. She would be twenty soon, but he found that impossible to imagine. She had talked about it so much, all the countries she would visit. Thailand, Spain, maybe America. She had mentioned working as an au pair.

What do you know about kids?

How hard can it be?

He liked to daydream about it. Lina, driving on a highway in California, with a couple of American kids on the back seat. That she wasn’t missing at all.