‘No,’ I said, and it surprised me to hear it come out of my mouth. I shook my head again. ‘No, that’s not what’s happening. Not with the grand-bairn ready for Christmas. Not with what I’ve spent on shiny bloody wrapping paper. No bloody thank you.’

I hauled myself up. John started towards me but I gave him the look that scares him silent. I picked up the lantern and shone it into the hole in the ceiling. It was dark and dirty, all wires and cobwebs and grime.

‘Right,’ I said, and if I was scared in that moment I can’t honestly say I remember it. It just felt like the only thing to do and there was nobody else who could do it.

I put my foot on the sink. Felt the pain in my joints and hoisted myself up. Then I reached up, standing on tiptoes, fingertips grabbing the rough wood. A moment later John was under me. Sera too. We must have looked like the worst bunch of silly beggars, but in fits and starts they shoved me high enough to get a grip on the wood and haul myself through sheer bloody mindedness into the pitch-dark space between the ceiling of one room, and the floor of the next.

I heard John’s voice, muffled and far away. ‘Your boots,’ he hissed. ‘Kick your boots off.’

I did what he said. My clumpy little shoes fell from my stockinged feet. They made no sound and I imagined John standing below to catch them. He said something else to me and I won’t lie to you, over the years I’ve imagined that it was ‘I love you’ or something to that effect. It probably wasn’t. It was probably something practical, or an instruction to keep the noise down. But I didn’t say anything in return. I just wriggled forward, splinters in my belly, rough wood against my forearms; spiders and feathers and dirt in my hair, pushing forward blindly into a black, hungry mouth.

CORDELIA

The pain was excruciating. I could feel my skin blister and blacken as the flame chewed slowly through the bonds. I didn’t know what I was tied up with but I started to smell something greasy and chemical over the sizzling bacon scent of cooked skin.