And that’s when it happened.

Her shoeless foot landed on something sharp and cutting.

The pain sliced through her skin.

She screamed.

The distant shout told her she’d been heard.

They were coming.

Carly sobbed openly now.

Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

Her eyes slid from the graffiti to the hatches – CONTAMINATED SHOES, CONTAMINATED CLOTHES.

They could fit through spaces the men couldn’t.

She released her sisters and sprang forward. Her hands closed over the round metal handle, felt the roughness of the rust as it crumbled. She yanked as hard as she could.

‘Come on.’

Her slippery palm lost its grip.

‘Come on!’ She tugged again. It didn’t move. She tried the next hatch, waited for the feel of hot breath on her neck, a hand to clamp on her shoulder, fingers to squeeze her throat. ‘Open!’

A sudden pop. She fell backwards as the small door opened, shockwaves of pain ricocheting up her spine. She scrambled to her feet. They were almost out of time, she knew.

But Leah had already sensed what she was about to do. Was already offering a leg up to Marie, who was protesting, ‘No. No. We have to stay together.’

‘Fucking move!’ Carly shouted, her fingers gripping Marie’s school jumper and hefting her off the floor, shoving her through the gap. Leah was easier, desperate to follow her twin whose screams were fading. The bear she’d been clutching tumbled to the floor but Carly didn’t stop to pick him up.

‘Oi!’

The men clattered into the room. Arms outstretched to grab her. Without hesitating Carly hurled herself through the hatch head first.

She was plummeting down the chute into darkness.

Into fiery hot pain.

Into nothing.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Leah

Now

I have shed my usual jeans and T-shirt in favour of smart black trousers and a white shirt, wanting to look capable and in control, even if I don’t feel it. Each time my confidence abates, I recall how it felt when I believed Archie had been snatched earlier and my resolve hardens. The second George comes home I am going to the Dog and Duck to see if he is there. If he is I’m going to warn him that he’s gone too far. He ruined my life and I sent him back to prison the last time he was out.

Tit for tat.

I would set him up again if it weren’t for Archie. Now I have too much to lose. Nothing is comparable with what he put me through. We’re not even by a long way but it has to stop. When he was a threat to me I was scared. Now he’s involved my son I’m furious. The teddy had brought it all back. Not only the child I was then, but the child I had been before. The one who laughed and danced and didn’t know what if felt like to feel afraid. I want to be her again. I am stepping out of the quicksand of my past and planting my feet firmly in the present.