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Sunday 7 September

DARKNESS ISN’T STILL, JOANNA GROVES HAS LEARNED, IT moves. It shimmers, gathers itself, wafts closer and forms strange, drifting shapes. Sometimes, darkness becomes so heavy it presses down on her scalp, on the back of her eyes, her throat. Joanna had never really thought about darkness before she was brought to this place. Now, she finds it difficult to think about anything else.

Except, maybe, the cold. It’s difficult not to think about cold when the pain of it is ever present, even when she sleeps. She has no sense of time, has no real idea how long she’s been here, but she knows there came a point when she stopped shivering and when moving her limbs became a struggle. Her world has become darkness and cold.

And soft, scrabbly noises. Scrapings and scratchings and tiny, mewling cries. Movement all around her. She wouldn’t have believed this cold, black, empty place could sustain life, but it does. And they’re getting bolder, the scratchy things. Creeping closer all the time. Maybe they’ve already worked out that she can’t move.

She tries to swallow and can’t. Even breathing isn’t easy any more. The first time she was left alone, she screamed until she could taste blood. And then duct tape was wrapped round the lower part of her face. When it was taken off, great handfuls of her hair had been ripped away with it. She hadn’t screamed again.

She has a sudden sense that the darkness has changed. It isn’t random any more. The darkness has taken on a purpose and that purpose is drawing closer.

‘You’re there, aren’t you?’ she whispers in the direction from which she might have heard something heavier than a scratch. ‘You’ve come back. I know you have.’

Another sound. Definitely a footstep this time.

‘I know why you’re doing this,’ says Joanna, and every word hurts. ‘I know about what you say my brother did to you and your sister.’

The movement has stopped.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Joanna quickly. ‘I didn’t mean that. I’m just scared. What he did to you, I mean. What my brother and his friends did to you.’

Another footstep, getting closer, and Joanna has a sense that she has to speak quickly. ‘What they did was terrible, I know that,’ she says. ‘They should never have been allowed to get away with it.’

A sound of fabric rustling. Someone is crouching just in front of her.

‘But it was nothing to do with me,’ says Joanna. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

Something cold brushes against her face. A sloshing sound. She can smell plastic. She tilts back her head and lets the water flow into her throat. It helps a bit. She pushes the bottle away with her mouth when she’s had enough. Her captor is very close. If Joanna’s hands weren’t strapped behind her back, she could reach out and touch the girl’s face.

‘Can I ask you something?’ asks Joanna.

For a second there is no reply, but she knows the other girl is still there. She can hear her breathing. Then, ‘Why didn’t I just kill the boys?’ a soft voice says. ‘Is that what you want to ask me?’

‘Yes,’ says Joanna, and feels guilty just for saying the words. Toby is her twin. She loves him more than she does her parents. Yet Toby is the reason she’s here.

‘How tall is your brother?’ the voice says. ‘Six one, six two? And he weighs about two hundred pounds? You’ve seen how big I am. There’s only one way I could kill a man of that size and that’s a bullet through the head from a distance.’

She stops and Joanna waits. Then she feels her captor moving closer.

‘Well,’ the girl whispers in her ear, ‘where’s the fun in that?’