He’d wondered initially whether the very simple furnishings and effects such as linen and cutlery had belonged to those same unfortunate people, but then he discovered upon being placed in his own residence that such things were drawn from one of the city resource stores scattered throughout the reclaimed areas. All one had to do was present a copy of their housing assignment and they would be allowed to wander through and select the basics. There were even food vouchers for those who agreed to scour the unclaimed areas for useable materials on behalf of the city, and for a week or so, Miguel and Sofia had worked on that detail until they found better employment. He didn’t miss that job at all. It was just one step above shovelling up the remains, sometimes dried, sometimes still thickly gelatinous, of the Disappeared.

People, it turned out, did not like to be surrounded by the leavings of the dead whose homes they had taken. Although, when he thought about it, the clean sheets and towels and simple items of clothing provided by the federales had almost certainly come from dead people as well, even if they were simply the owners of department stores whose stocks had been salvaged.

‘Thank you, Miguel,’ said Maive, so quietly that he had to strain to hear her as he followed her into the kitchen at the rear of the house.

‘It is okay,’ he replied. ‘It is lucky I had come around, I think.’

The kitchen was warm and smelled of wood smoke from an old-fashioned stove. It was too dangerous to operate the gas lines, and electricity supply could be sporadic. Wood stoves replaced electric in many homes. If there was one thing Kansas City was blessed with, it was wood. A city in the forest.

Maive had been baking. A tray of muffins sat cooling on a scarred wooden table, resting atop a folded tea towel. She gestured for him to sit down while she splashed some water on her face, drying off with an apron hanging from the handle of the kitchen cupboard. Miguel considered the cup of lukewarm coffee he still held in his hands: the beans were carefully rationed and very expensive, and he didn’t like the idea of it going to waste. All the same, he poured out the dregs, rinsed the cup and set it in the drainer.

‘I’m sorry . . . my manners,’ she said. ‘Please sit down, and let me pour you a hot drink. I could do with one myself.’

‘So you will not be attending to the advice of your friend, about the sinful coffee?’

Maive answered that with a sour grimace. ‘He’s no friend of mine. He only turned up here after I registered with the tabernacle. They’ve had trouble with him too. Harassing people, new arrivals mostly. I suspect he has a mental illness.’