‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I need to go to the bathroom.’

‘No!’

‘There are no windows in the bathrooms,’ she said evenly. ‘Check and see. There’s only roof vents, and I’m not that athletic. No one is.’ She smiled, and her smile would have stopped a tank in its tracks. ‘Len, if you don’t let me go, you’ll be sorry.’

‘I…’

‘I bet you want to go, too,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘What with all this excitement. Tell you what? Why don’t you take your gun and Mr Daniels and Harry into the boys’ room while I use the girls’ room. You can keep your gun on them and I swear I won’t go anywhere.’

He stared at her, baffled.

‘Make as many threats as you like,’ she said calmly. ‘You don’t need to. I’m promising, and I don’t break promises. I will not try to escape. You have my word. I won’t leave Harry. But if we can’t work bathroom arrangements out we’re going to be very uncomfortable.’

‘Yes…’ He thought this through. ‘If you try and get away I’ll shoot the kid. I mean it.’

‘I told you-I won’t leave without Harry,’ she said, and her eyes were direct and honest-so that even Nick, who didn’t trust anyone, trusted her. ‘I swear.’

And, to Nick’s amazement, Len agreed.

CHAPTER TWO

AS HE agreed to almost everything else she suggested through that long afternoon and night. Len might be a criminal with a record a mile long, but he was also still child enough to respond to Shanni’s authoritative school-marming and cheerful smile. In fact, he almost seemed to like it, and, as night fell and she warmed milk for him, he even gave her a hint of a shy smile in return.

‘Ta…’

‘Think nothing of it,’ she said, ignoring Nick’s look of amazement. She glanced at her watch. It was almost ten. After a dinner of bananas, apples and milk there was nothing more she could do to make them comfortable or to defuse the tension. ‘I guess we should all try to sleep now.’