The sound of rushing water warned her that the tide was coming in and there wasn’t much time before the entrance to the cave would become inaccessible. She’d imagined that the speed with which he would follow would result in him being here by now.

Perhaps she’d been wrong about that?

Seven trickled the sand through her fingers, feeling its soft caress. The stone walls of the cave reminded her of her cell. The sand on which she sat, a different colour, but still sand. She thought of her fellow prisoners back then. The spider and the black scorpion, the latter offering her a way out, if she should so choose.

Perhaps that was also true about what was about to happen here, with the human version, equally deadly. That thought didn’t distress her. Sugarboy was dead, and inside so was she. Nothing he could do to her now would change that.

Seven felt in her pocket for the crumpled paper the woman had given her in the clearing. She didn’t need light to know what was written there.

Maybe I should have called her? Told her everything? That would have answered the question in her eyes. All the questions.

If Sugarboy hadn’t died, maybe she would have.

The sound was barely distinguishable, but when you’d spent so much time alone in captivity, you discerned and evaluated every noise.

He was here.

Relief swamped her because it meant that it was nearly over and oh how she longed for it to be over.

‘Seven?’ his voice called. ‘Are you okay?’

She remained silent, listening for his footfall on the sand, counting the steps until he met what she had prepared for him.

He’d halted, believing her to be there, but not yet sure of his approach. His voice was his greatest asset and he would use it, to cajole and reassure her of his intentions, just as he had when in a combat zone, and after the Taliban had released them, when he’d revealed how much that release had been down to her saving the baby.

Later of course the story had changed. It had been ‘the Scorpion’ who had really saved them, with his ability to speak the language and his proposition that they were of much more use to the Taliban alive rather than dead. He had become the hero of the tale.

All wars needed money to endure, he’d told them. And money far outweighed the birth of one baby, even a male.

She tried to envisage how far into the cave he had come. If he stood long enough, he might notice that something was wrong, and then what she had planned, like in the woods, would fail.

But his confidence in what he was capable of was as strong as ever.

‘Seven,’ he called, ‘I know you’re in there. I can smell you.’