Something.

There was nothing. Carly stared up at the ceiling until her neck ached. Why wasn’t there a hatch, an air vent?

Anything.

‘I need to wee, Carly,’ Leah said in a small voice.

Carly jerked her head towards the corner, averting her eyes, unfairly cross with Leah. The stench in the room was already unbearable.

She couldn’t breathe.

Ten paces, turn. Six paces, turn. A lion in a cage.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Time ticked past painfully slowly. Intermittently, Carly had doled out sweets. They had hardly any food left, and only one can of Coke that they were sharing.

‘Small sips only,’ Carly had warned. Although hunger pangs cramped her stomach, she knew they could survive days without food. Not without any liquid, though. It was only the second time that day she had needed to wee and her urine stank – she was becoming dehydrated.

Carly pulled up her pants and turned around to see the tell-tale bulge of a blackcurrant liquorice sweet in Marie’s cheek. ‘For God’s sake. I told you not to have any more.’

‘I’m starving,’ Marie said.

‘We’re all starving. Did you steal a sweet too, Leah?’ Carly spat out the word steal like it was the worst thing you could do and she thought perhaps stealing was. Not sweets though, but children.

Leah shook her head. Carly believed her, she was always the one who followed rules. Horrified when she had caught Carly forging Mum’s signature on notes so she could get out of doing PE.

Carly gave Leah a sweet, it was only fair. She hesitated before she took the last one for herself, untwisting the purple wrapper, placing the hard shell of blackcurrant that would soften into liquid on her tongue. ‘God, I’m so sick of these. I’d kill for a Big Mac.’

‘Ooh, Carly. You have to broaden your palate.’ Marie perfectly imitated her father. Carly clutched at the chance of a moment of lightness.

‘Remember when Dad ordered scallops for me in the Maldives and I thought it was some sort of berry on top but it was caviar?’ She pulled a face.

‘Fish eggs!’ Marie squealed. ‘You ate the actual eggs of an actual fish!’

‘You can’t talk. What about the frogs’ legs you had in Cannes?’

‘I liked them.’ Marie rubbed her tummy. ‘They tasted just like chicken. Don’t you wish you’d tried them, Carly?’

Since her mum had married her stepdad, holidays in damp, rented caravans and chicken nuggets for tea had been replaced with trips to Monaco and roasted game. Carly was grateful her mum was happy and her new dad was so generous – she’d never even met her biological dad, but though her stepdad treated Carly exactly the same as his biological daughters, sometimes she missed the old days. She’d only been small but she remembers she and Mum eating dinner with their fingers in front of The Simpsons, just the two of them. Her mum had never said as much but Carly thought she missed those days too. Sometimes when her stepdad was out and the twins were in bed she would wink at Carly and dig out a bag of chicken nuggets and chips she had hidden at the bottom of the freezer. She would shake them onto a baking tray and while they were cooking Carly would retrieve the bottle of ketchup hidden at the back of the fridge and squirt it into bowls. They would snuggle up on the sofa, their hands dipping chips into the red sauce and Carly thought sometimes that was when she was happiest. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her sisters, because she did, but the ritual was something that was just hers and Mum’s. TV and junk food in their pyjamas. She preferred it more than dressing up and eating the miniature meals she had tried at Michelin-starred restaurants. The twins loved all the fancy food but then they’d been brought up on it. Even at their tender age the twins could sit without fidgeting through a five-course meal, always using the right cutlery.