Joel started to talk again as he reached the men, though Tom couldn’t hear his words, just the distinctive, slightly domineering tone of his voice. Chris was adding comments, pointing off into the trees as he did so, overplaying his part.

And it was already obvious that they were wasting their time. The man with the mustache was stone-faced, then amused. He said something over his shoulder and the other men laughed. Joel laughed too, apparently unable to see that the men were mocking him, and that there was menace in their mockery.

The man pointed questioningly to the backpacks, and Joel’s voice once again hummed across the distance as he took off his backpack and handed it over. Chris did the same and two of the other men started to look inside them.

Joel reached out, pointing to his own backpack in an attempt to explain something, but whether he moved too quickly or the mustache guy was just tiring of him, it was immediately obvious he’d made a mistake. The man struck out with sickening speed, a blow with the back of his hand that knocked Joel’s face sideways.

Alice cursed again and Nick said, “No, no, no,” as if by repeating it he could make things go into reverse. Chris stepped back in shock, but that just brought a more urgent response. The first man—the leader, without a doubt—barked out a brief command. The others dropped the packs and grabbed hold of Joel and Chris.

Chris sounded panicky as he shouted, “Say something, Joel!”

But if Joel responded, they didn’t hear it from their hiding place, and it produced no effect.

More instructions were given and the two boys were pushed, with kicks and shoves to prod them on their way, across to the barn. They were taken inside, one of the men emerging again almost immediately, but not the others.

A couple of minutes crept past, silence beyond the closed barn door. Tom strained to listen, not certain that he wanted to hear what was happening in there, but listening anyway.

Then the door opened and the other two men came out, laughing with each other. Tom tried to work out what that laughter might mean, if there were any hints within it as to what might have happened to Joel and Chris. For a moment he imagined them both dead in there, killed silently with a minimum of fuss, their deaths no less random and swift than the viper bite that had killed Toby.

The boss said something to the younger man and there was a brief discussion before the younger one went back to the barn. He came out again with a small crate to sit on, closed the door, and settled down—guard duty, thought Tom with relief. They weren’t dead, not yet.