An hour passed. I stretched and relaxed as far as my restrictions allowed, recited poems in my head to keep alert and conscious. I listened to the voices of my captors and let them carry me to various points of the globe. I was back in the Caucasus Mountains, two years into my career; a dream job, among the tribes, up in the clouds and jagged white peaks, told to establish a picture of gang operations. I was shown how to chew certain flowers against altitude sickness. I watched my shadow cast up into the morning mist half a mile in height. My official brief involved establishing hierarchies, but these people didn’t do hierarchy, they did blood feuds. That was their life. And the only way to step beyond the endless, innumerable tangle of feuds was to establish yourself as abrek. Russians translated the word as ‘bandit’, which missed the sense utterly. The abrek were outcasts, gathered high in the hills, forbidden to work the fields or engage in business. They survived alone, feared but respected. These were the men I was trying to reach. I outlined the anthropological phenomenon of the abrek in a detailed report sent to the Central Asia desk in London, for which I was informed that I was not at Cambridge any more. It elicited a smile, even now.

A spade hit the frozen soil outside. I listened to the clink and shuck of its blade. The darkness began to soften. My guard stepped out of the room and I watched his shadow on the bare concrete floor as he knelt and prayed. Fajr, dawn prayer. A time worth marking. I tried to remember all the different calls to prayer that had interrupted my sleep in various countries; all the men I’d watched praying: complacent ones, desperate ones, ones who did not know they were about to die. His shadow pointed to the front of the house, which meant Mecca was in the opposite direction to my barred window. That was south-west then; at least I had my bearings. There was something unusual about his muttered prayers, and after a while I realised he was praying in Dari. A Dari like that spoken in West Afghanistan, cut off from Kabul by five hundred miles of mountains. I thought of the deep blue lakes of Band-e Amir, and the pristine Panjshir Valley, and the people there, serene and welcoming as the landscape, as if environments worked so transparently. I watched his face when he returned.

‘From Herat?’ I asked, trying to rustle up what remained of my own Dari.

He looked suspicious.

‘It’s a beautiful place.’

No answer. From West Afghanistan to Kazakhstan: that sounded like a heroin route. I thought through the various warlords who controlled the trade.

‘Can I stretch for a few seconds?’ I asked. ‘I can’t feel my legs.’