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Lying on the floor of the crypt, I worried about Poppy. I had put out her food before leaving to visit Alice, and she had enough water for a few days. But her provisions would soon run out. Wretchedly I pictured her running frantically around the house, searching for me. Gradually she would grow weak from hunger and lie down beside my bed, whimpering for me, as her life slipped away. I could hardly bear to think about her dying like that, abandoned and alone. If she had been with me in the cellar, we would have been able to keep each other warm. We had a supply of water, and she might have been able to catch rats and insects, and keep herself alive. As it was, she had been locked up in Rosecroft to starve to death, alone.
‘We have to escape before we die,’ I shouted at Sophie. ‘We ca
