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in an old farmhouse somewhere. Stevie had focused her energies on remaining very still, becoming very small, disappearing from the radar. Their captors had so far ignored her and directed their attentions to the belligerent tattooed oil worker, and Mark, the reedy journalist.
    The two men were now standing in stress positions up against a wall. Stevie wondered how far the interrogators were allowed to take the exercise.
    Only one of their captors remained to conduct the interrogation; the other men went to play cards in the next room. Stevie soon noticed that the interrogator—an ugly bulldog of a man—had taken a specific interest in Mark. He began asking him questions about his sources, about the rogue soldiers. Mark was foolishly trying to talk back, perhaps buoyed by the confidence that this was just an exercise.
    The bulldog was growing angrier, shouting. He wanted to know where Mark had got the information on the soldiers; it had to, he yelled, be an inside job. Stevie hoped Mark would be sensible enough to realise that, even if this were an exercise, he must absolutely hold out. He would be risking the lives of the whistleblowers if their identities were uncovered.
    The very real consequences for this mock interrogation brought a second wave of fear and doubt. She didn’t trust the bulldog; something was wrong. Could it all be for real? Why had the bulldog singled out Mark? Did he have a real motive behind his questions?
    The interrogation continued. When the bulldog produced pliers and Mark wet himself, Stevie decided that, either way, the exercise had gone much further than ‘let’s pretend’. Mark seemed to be on the verge of telling the mutt what he wanted to know. Something had to be done.
    Diversion and escape.
    Stevie suddenly started screaming. The men playing cards in the other room came running in; the bulldog stopped his psychological torture.
    Stevie screamed higher, louder, hysterical now. ‘I can’t take it! I’m frightened! I want to go home!’
    The bulldog laughed. The other men glanced uneasily at each other.
    Surely they would be nervous of causing any real damage; this was supposed to be an exercise. And in Stevie’s experience, hysterical women made most men feel terribly nervous . . .
    Stevie let out another bloodcurdling scream and began banging her head against the wall. One of the men rushed over to stop her. He untied her hands; Stevie sobbed into them, rocking back and forth.
    ‘I want to use the bathroom,’ she finally stuttered. Her jailer lifted her and helped her into the corridor, showed her a small door. Stevie locked it quickly behind her.
    As she had hoped, there was a window—tiny, but a window. She shoved it open. Could she possibly fit through it? Certainly not in her heavy Shetland Island knit cardigan and massive boots.
    She stripped to her thermals and hoped years of school gymnastics would be enough to get her through. She pushed herself off the far wall and dived sideways through the opening.
    She crashed head-first onto the sodden ground outside, her legs still half inside, her hip tearing painfully on the sharp window catch. She pulled herself off the ground and limped towards the captor’s jeep. It was the only vehicle in the yard.
    Hardly daring to hope she would, she found the keys shoved up behind the sunvisor and started the massive engine. She revved it loudly, hoping it would be heard inside the farmhouse. As she burned out of the yard, the front door of the farmhouse burst open, men spilled out, angry shouts. They did not have guns. Stevie allowed herself a small, gleeful smile. She hoped her escape would be enough to distract the bulldog from his persecution of Mark; she also hoped that the bulldog would feel as humiliated as he’d made Mark feel, that one had got away.
    Stevie sped along the road, not caring where she was headed, until her phone showed there was enough reception to make a call.
    David Rice said even less than usual as Stevie recounted