She pulled her arm free and struggled out from under him. The chain securing her ankle to the wall rattled angrily as she jumped to her feet. She hit him for a second time as he swayed on his knees, yelping in pain.

The brick shattered into a dozen pieces, and for a moment Tara thought she’d failed. Her heart sank, but then the man grunted and fell on to his side, barely moving.

Feeling a rush of excitement, she crouched down beside him and pulled the set of keys from his belt, praying that one would unlock the chain around her ankle.

There must have been a dozen keys of various shapes and sizes, and the first one didn’t fit. Nor did the second.

The guard was beginning to come round. He let out a moan, and one arm moved.

Tara tried a third key, her hands shaking so much she could barely put it into the slot. Another wrong one.

He was turning round now, one hand still over his injured eye, but the other one staring at her.

Come on, come on.

She tried a fourth key. It didn’t work.

The man reached round behind his back. When his hand came back into view, Tara gasped and panic swept through her. He was holding a huge knife with a jagged blade. She’d seen hunters using knives like that to gut deer back in Kosovo.

Willing herself to stay calm, trying desperately to forget that in the next few seconds she could die, Tara tried another key. She slipped it into the lock with shaking hands. The lock clicked, and the metal clamp that had been painfully attached to her from the moment she’d first woken up in this place opened. Just at that moment, the guard lunged towards her with the knife. She jumped backwards, hitting the wall behind her. The tip of the blade came so close to her belly that she could almost feel it touching her.

But with the chain removed from her, she suddenly felt a new surge of energy. Taking advantage of the fact that her attacker was still on his knees, she darted around him and leaped at the cell door. She flung it open and ran into the narrow, dimly-lit corridor outside.

Tara had no idea where she was going but she could tell she was in some kind of basement area. The walls and floors were the same cold stone as the cell, the only light provided by a single bulb hanging down from the ceiling.

To her right was a flight of steps, and she sprinted towards them. Her legs were stiff from lack of exercise, but sheer terror and a strong desire to live drove her on. She passed other cell doors, making her wonder how many girls had been locked in this horrible place, and then she was up the steps, taking them two at a time.

She could hear him chasing behind her, his footsteps heavy on the stone, the curses raging in his throat.

There was a door at the top, and she prayed it wouldn’t be locked. Grabbing the handle, she gave it a yank so hard that when it opened it almost knocked her back down the steps.

She charged through the gap, then screamed in despair. She was suddenly in a dark, empty cupboard with a blank wall directly in front of her, and no obvious way out. She hammered on the wall, still screaming, but it wasn’t doing any good. Nothing budged. She was trapped, and her attacker was almost at the top of the steps.

Turning round, she kicked at the door with all her strength, the force of the kick sending it flying into him. He let out a yelp and stumbled backwards. At the same time, Tara lost her balance and fell backwards herself in the opposite direction.

She must have hit some sort of lever that opened a trap door, because suddenly the wall wasn’t there any more and she was rolling onto a thick carpet in a grand-looking living room with expensive furnishings. Daylight was glaring in through huge windows, making her squint with pain.

Tara was straight up on her feet, sprinting out of the room and down an equally grand hallway with dozens of incredible animal heads lining the walls. This was the house of a very rich person, but all she could think of was getting out.

There was another door ahead. It looked like the front door to the house. Behind her, she could hear her jailer calling someone. There was increasing alarm in his voice, as if he knew he’d made a terrible mistake. The next second, Tara was outside, the fresh air hitting her in the face like a slap. All she could see in the distance was trees.

Trees and freedom.

2

‘ALL THERE IS up here is bloody trees,’ said Guy, sounding knackered and pissed off. ‘I hope you two know where you’re going, because I don’t.’

‘Course we do,’ said Ash, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice.

The weekend was only a few hours old and yet she was already bitterly regretting coming away on a walking trip with Guy and Tracy. It wasn’t that they were bad people – they weren’t – but they were Nick’s friends rather than hers (Nick and Guy had gone to university together). And they both had this hugely irritating habit of talking about how much fun they had living in Singapore, where Guy earned squillions and paid only 10 per cent tax, and Tracy lived a relaxed expat lifestyle. This seemed to consist solely of tennis, drinks parties and luxury treatments, but despite Tracy’s best efforts at bigging it up, it sounded to Ash as much fun as having your teeth pulled out.

‘I don’t miss this country, you know,’ continued Guy as the four of them walked down a slight incline towards a pine forest that led to the lodge they’d booked. ‘You pay all these taxes and what do you get for your money? Sod all.’

Ash and Nick, who were walking a few yards ahead, exchanged glances, and Nick raised an eyebrow. It was clear to Ash that he wasn’t having the time of his life either.

‘Well, you get views like this,’ said Nick, stopping and looking back down the hill they’d just climbed to the forest-covered valley below, where a river wound away gently into the distance. ‘I bet you don’t see many sights like that in Singapore.’

‘That’s true,’ said Tracy, who’d been banging on less than her husband about the joys of their new home. ‘It is beautiful.’ She closed her eyes, basking in the last rays of the early evening sun, looking like she was enjoying herself for the first time that day.

Guy wasn’t convinced. ‘Lombok in Indonesia is just as beautiful. And a lot warmer too. We’re thinking about buying a holiday home there.’

‘I don’t know about you lot, but I could murder a pint right now,’ said Nick, trying to change the subject.

‘I concur,’ said Guy, who liked using big words where little ones would do. ‘Is there a pub round here anywhere?’

‘Afraid not,’ said Ash. ‘I did say the lodge was in the middle of nowhere when I booked it.’

Guy looked annoyed. ‘You weren’t lying.’

God knows what they were going to do tomorrow, thought Ash. Or Sunday. They’d come to this isolated part of Scotland to walk. It was something the four of them had done together a couple of times before. But as Ash thought back to those weekends now, she remembered that actually they’d been more about sitting around drinking, smoking dope and having a natter rather than going for proper all-day hikes.

She and Nick had changed since those days. They appreciated the great outdoors for what it was – a much-needed escape from the grim routine of London life. It was clear that Guy and Tracy didn’t feel the same way, although at least Tracy was making an effort.

‘Who the hell is that?’ said Nick, as they all turned round, following his gaze.

At first, Ash couldn’t see what he was looking at, then she saw someone running towards them through long grass about a hundred metres away. It looked like whoever it was had just come out of the line of pine trees along the ridge above them, and they were clearly in a real hurry.

‘Is she naked?’ asked Guy, sounding genuinely interested in something for the first time that day.