I didn’t answer. Just darted to John’s side. My heart was thumping and it was all I could do to stop myself from puddling in on myself and giving in to the dead faint that seemed to be nudging at the edges of my vision. Pike? What the hell had I mentioned him for? Pike was a name from the past – a poacher turned gamekeeper who had done his damnedest to keep our lad on the straight and narrow and who had moved away from the area when he realized just how badly he’d failed. I still saw him as a white knight on the hillside, ready to rush in and stop whatever badness was being stirred up in my life. I realized even as I was saying it that Pike wouldn’t be coming to our aid. The only person who knew we were here was Cordelia and there was no way she would have sent us here if she’d thought there was a risk to us. So whatever we had stumbled into could very well mean trouble for Cordelia as well. She might be on her way into something very dangerous. These were bad men, I was sure of it. Men with guns and that cocksure bloody arrogance that says they know they’ll get away with it even before they pull the trigger.

The two men moved soundlessly out of the room and I heard the door closing and a key turning in the lock. Instinctively I reached up for the cord to switch on the light but nothing happened when I yanked it down. Sera didn’t seem to need the light. I watched, mesmerized, as she manoeuvred John into a sitting position, his back straight against the smooth, cold wall. I’d never been in this room before. It was empty save for a medicine cabinet above a little sink. There were no windows. There was a hole in the roof: chunks of plaster and exposed timbers. The wallpaper was peeling and I could smell damp. I could smell John, too: the sickness, the shame.

‘Are you a nurse?’ I asked Sera, when I could get my tongue working. ‘Is he all right? Can you stop him hurting?’

Sera’s hands moved deftly over the yellow-stained bandages. She touched the adhesive strips and her rough fingertips probed the edges of the surgical scar. I got a whiff of something bad.

‘The stitches have torn,’ she said, apologetically, and crossed herself, lips moving in a prayer I couldn’t hear. ‘Only three or four sutures gone and the bleeding is not so terrible, but he is at risk of infection. He will need antibiotics. For now all I can do is bandage him up again and provide fluids. He will need a doctor. The sooner the better.’