6:30 AM

CRAIG and Sophie found the barn at last.

They had waited a few minutes by the back door, hesitating, then realized they would freeze to death if they stayed there indefinitely. Screwing up their courage, they had crossed the yard directly, heads bent, praying that no one would look out of the kitchen windows. The twenty paces from one side to the other seemed to take forever through the thick snow. Then they followed the front wall of the barn, always in full view from the kitchen. Craig did not dare to look in that direction: he was too frightened of what he might see. When at last they reached the door, he took one swift glance. In the dark he could not see the building itself, just the lighted windows. The snow further obscured his view, and he could see only vague figures moving in the kitchen. There was no sign that anyone had glanced out at the wrong moment.

He pulled the big door open. They stepped inside, and he closed it gratefully. Warm air washed over him. He was shivering, and Sophie's teeth were chattering like castanets. She threw off her snow-covered anorak and sat on one of the big hospital-style radiators. Craig would have liked to take a minute to warm himself, but there was no time for that—he had to get help fast.

The place was dimly lit by a night-light next to the camp bed where Tom lay. Craig looked closely at the boy, wondering whether to wake him. He seemed to have recovered from Sophie's vodka, and was sleeping peacefully in his Spider-Man pajamas.

Craig's eye was caught by something on the floor beside the pillow. It was a photograph. Craig picked it up and held it in the light. It appeared to have been taken at his mother's birthday party, and showed Tom with Sophie, her arm around his shoulders. Craig smiled to himself. I'm not the only one who was captivated by her that afternoon, he thought. He put the picture back, saying nothing to Sophie.

There was no point in waking Tom, he decided. There was nothing the boy could do, and he would only be terrified. He was better off asleep.

Craig went quickly up the ladder that led to the hayloft bedroom. On one of the narrow beds he could make out the heap of blankets that covered his sister Caroline. She seemed fast asleep. Like Tom, she was better off that way. If she woke up and found out what was going on, she would have hysterics. He would try not to wake her.

The second bed had not been slept in. On the floor next to it he could see the shape of an open suitcase. Sophie said she had dropped her phone on top of her clothes. Craig crossed the room, moving cautiously in the near-dark. As he bent down, he heard, very near to him, the soft rustle and squeak of something alive, and he grunted a startled curse, his heart hammering in his chest; then he realized it was Caroline's damn rats moving in their cage. He pushed the cage aside and began to search Sophie's case.

Working by touch, he rummaged in the contents. On top was a plastic shopping bag containing a gift-wrapped parcel. Otherwise it was mostly clothes, neatly folded: someone had helped Sophie pack, he guessed, for he did not take her to be a tidy person. He was momentarily distracted by a silky bra, then his hand closed over the oblong shape of a mobile phone. He flipped its lid, but no lights came on. He could not see well enough to find the "On-Off" switch.

He hurried back down the ladder with the phone in his hand. There was a standard lamp by the bookshelf. He turned it on and held Sophie's phone under the light. He found the "Power" button and pressed it, but nothing happened. He could have cried with frustration. "I can't get the bloody thing to come on!" he whispered.

She held out her hand, still sitting on the radiator, and he gave her the phone. She pressed the same button, frowned, pressed it again, then jabbed at it repeatedly. At last she said, "The battery has run down."

"Shit! Where's the charger?"

"I don't know."

"In your suitcase?"

"I don't think so."

Craig became exasperated. "............