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Her heart was thundering in her chest, her breath short, but there was no question of backing out now.

Hanging the wet cloth over the tap to dry, Viyan cast another wary look out of the kitchen window.

To her relief, Leyla was still deep in conversation with her Dutch accomplice, the latter appearing to be unsettled and unhappy about something.

Leyla was working hard to reassure her partner in crime, reasoning earnestly with him, even laying a comforting hand on his arm, which suited Viyan just fine.

The more distracted Leyla was, the better.

The young mother had waited all morning for her opportunity.

It had been hard to concentrate on her chores, her mind full of what today might bring, but she’d tried hard to appear as docile, broken and listless as usual.

She avoided Leyla’s eye at all times, terrified her vengeful captor might sniff out her treachery, even when she was reeling off the extra chores she expected Viyan to complete.

Nodding obediently, Viyan had complied, despite the agony which still racked her body, silently praying that Leyla would leave the farmhouse soon.

But her captor seemed to linger longer than usual today, finding things to do, never straying far from her charge.

As the minutes slowly passed, Viyan began to despair of ever being left alone, but then happily, the Dutch haulier intervened, summoning Leyla outside for a private conversation.

Something was clearly up, but Viyan had no interest in the little drama playing out in the yard: she had a job to do.

Hobbling from the kitchen, she made for the staircase.

There was no way that Leyla could hear her from here, but still she trod lightly on the stairs as she hauled herself up, the aged floorboards emitting the gentlest protest as she rose.

Cresting the landing, Viyan made straight for the master bedroom.

There were a number of small rooms on the first floor, but Leyla knew which one to target.

She had never been allowed up here, her duties strictly reserved for the ground floor, but she knew from experience that Leyla conducted all her important business in the main bedroom, away from prying eyes.

Many times Viyan had stood in the kitchen, hearing the boards creaking above, earnestly wondering what was playing about between Leyla and her accomplices.

Now there was no such time for speculation and Viyan hobbled into the master bedroom, closing the door behind her.

It seemed profoundly odd, and dangerous, to be stepping into her captor’s inner sanctum, but if she wanted to make good her escape, if she wanted to see her family again, Viyan knew she had to hold her nerve.

The room was simply furnished, a large double bed, a desk and a fitted wardrobe providing the only decoration.

Bending her steps to the desk, Viyan tugged the top drawer open.

It was full of make-up and jewellery, so, closing it, she moved on to the next drawer.

This was more promising, stacked full of papers, but rifling through them, Viyan could find nothing of any interest. The bottom drawer was the same, so abandoning her search, she crossed to the bed.

Dropping to her knees, cursing at the pain, she peered underneath.

This was immediately more promising, a heavy trunk catching her eye.

Grasping the handle, she pulled it out from under the bed, exhaling with the effort.

Eagerly, her thumbs sought out the padlock, but it was locked and there was little chance of her guessing the code.

Angry and frustrated, she was about to replace the trunk when her gaze landed on a pair of shoeboxes, which had been secreted behind the bulky obstacle.

Ignoring the dust that danced around her as she burrowed under the bed, Viyan grabbed both, sliding them towards her.

Straightening up, she pulled the lid off the first one and gasped.

It was stacked to the brim with passports, the box a collage of burgundy, blue and black covers.

The contents of the second box was similar and Viyan now set to work, rifling through the little books, searching desperately for the familiar burgundy of her Turkish passport.

She found one, two, three, four documents belonging to her compatriots, but it was on the fifth go that she discovered what she was looking for.

Viyan Bashur. Her eyes drank in the detail of her name, her date of birth, her hometown, before alighting on the photo.

Instinctively, she let out a sob, saddened beyond measure by the elegant, handsome, hopeful young woman in the photo.

She looked so different now, drawn, thin, her raven hair thinning and flecked with grey, but here was a powerful reminder of who she had once been, who she could be again.

This was the real Viyan, not the helpless wraith that haunted this awful camp.

This document, this testament to her identity, her essence, was not only a tonic and an inspiration, it was also her ticket out of this country.

With her passport in hand, she would beg, steal, borrow, do whatever she had to do to raise the money for an airfare.

And once she was home, she would walk all the way from Istanbul to the Syrian border if she had to to be reunited with her children, to hear them call her ‘Mama’.

‘Viyan.’

She froze, her body suddenly rigid with tension, as Leyla’s cry drifted up from the ground floor. Viyan had been so intent on her task that she had not heard her mistress return.

‘Where the hell are you?’

She could hear her tormentor stomping around downstairs, angrily searching for her servant.

It would only be seconds at most before she discovered Viyan was missing and headed upstairs, so stuffing the passport into her hoodie, she replaced the lids on top of the shoeboxes and slid them back under the bed.

With a hefty tug, she replaced the trunk too, before gingerly rising to her feet, terrified of giving her presence away.

‘Where are you, you stupid bitch?’

Now she heard her accuser stalk back into the hallway.

A moment’s hesitation, then Leyla began to mount the stairs, the boards creaking ominously as she stomped up, up, up.

Terrified, Viyan scanned the room, realizing she was now only seconds from disaster.

She had two options, the wardrobe or the bed.

She took a tentative step towards the former, but immediately the floor squealed in protest, so retreating, she dropped to the ground.

Outside, she heard Leyla crest the landing, so scrabbling over the dusty floorboards, she slid underneath the bed, pulling her feet in just in time.

The door swung open, cannoning off the wall, as Leyla burst in.

‘Viyan? Viyan?’

Her angry cry echoed off the walls.

‘You’d better not be up here …’

Leyla took a step closer to the bed, then another.

Viyan stilled her breathing, knowing that she would not survive discovery, that she would pay a terrible price for her trespass.

Still Leyla came, eventually halting right next to the bed.

Viyan could hear her mistress’s breathing, could almost smell her anger, but she dared not make a sound herself.

Dust continued to dance around her, creeping up her nose, a sneeze surely only moments away.

Was this it then? Was she going to fall at the final hurdle?

‘I haven’t got time for this bullshit …’

To her enormous relief, she now heard Leyla move away, the coat hangers in the wardrobe jangling wildly as she roughly extracted some item of clothing, before heading from the room and away down the stairs.

Only when she heard the front door slam did Viyan dare to relax, the tension flooding from her body as she greedily sucked in oxygen.

Sliding from her hiding place, she limped from the room, stumbling down the stairs, before making for the back door.

She would have to invent some story about finishing her chores early, make her peace with Leyla and take whatever punishment was coming to her, but it mattered little.

Her plan had worked. She had the means, the resolve and the opportunity to make her escape from this blighted country.

Now she just needed to seize it.