‘What stuff shall we find?’ He slips his hand into mine, tired now. I’m glad I let him run off some of his energy in the playground.

‘Treasure?’

‘Pirates?’

‘Parrots?’

We play our word association game while Archie gathers leaves, twigs, stones and pine cones. He heaps them into my hand. I should have brought a bag to put them in, my jacket doesn’t have pockets and they’ll get crushed in my jeans. I glance around. There’s an old lady to my left, waiting while her dog cocks his leg up a tree.

‘I’m going to ask that lady if she’ll let us have some poo bags,’ I say. Archie doubles over in laughter.

‘Poo! For poo! We’re having a poo!’

‘Shh.’ The lady is watching us now. I cross over to her and explain what I need and why. She holds open a bag while I tip Archie’s discoveries inside and then she gives me another.

‘Archie.’ I turn, pleased that we have a spare bag to fill. ‘Archie?’

There’s a sick feeling in my stomach as I scan the spot Archie was standing in. It’s empty.

‘Archie!’ I shout but there is no ‘Mummy’ to let me know he is nearby. There are no footsteps.

‘Archie!’ I scream again.

Three steps away. I was only three steps away, but in the brief seconds I was talking to the lady he has vanished.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Carly

Then

Carly wished they were invisible. Out in the open she felt horribly exposed. Driven by the wind, rain lashed into their faces. The sky a dark, angry grey. Night was drawing in quickly.

‘Where do we go?’ asked Leah. Underneath the desperation that dripped from her voice nestled a thin layer of hope that her big sister would know what to do.

Carly frantically looked around as though the way out would suddenly materialize, like the Tardis. She wished she’d paid more attention to Mr Webster’s class when he’d shared the photos of the base. She could vaguely remember him highlighting the main building on the aerial view but she couldn’t remember which direction the town was in. They walked – more slowly than Carly would like but they were all weak, Marie most of all. Carly kept her eyes trained on the ground, seeking out footprints, tyre tracks, anything that might lay a Hansel and Gretel trail and lead them back the way they had come in. But the earth was slippy with rain and anything that might have been visible once had been washed away. One leaden foot in front of the other, progress was painfully slow. Carly could hear the laboured breathing of Leah and Marie. Fleetingly she wondered whether they should have waited until morning. At least in the ballroom they’d been dry but they’d had nothing to eat or drink and Carly knew they’d have less energy than they did right now.

The weather was vile, fog swirling around them. Carly imagined they looked like three small ghosts wandering around the base, and again she thought of the tales of dead soldiers. She held the girls’ hands a little tighter.