‘Maybe it would’ve been better for a lot of people if there had been, Miguel,’ she replied. ‘Have you ever considered how many people’s lives you might have saved if you had, I don’t know . . . dealt with him, back then?’

‘I had never thought of it like that,’ he said, meaning it. ‘You may be right. For some people, that would almost certainly be true. Hugo Chávez might still be with us.’

‘Ah. Snap.’

He wasn’t quite sure what Maive meant by that, but she seemed to be conceding this point, that speculating about what might have been was foolish.

‘If it had not been Roberto, it would have been someone else,’ Miguel continued. ‘Some general, some gangster, somebody was always going to take over down there when it fell apart. I was very surprised when I found out it was him, and yet, not at all. He has a political background. Maybe even military. He had the stink of the death squads about him. But yes, for a few days I stood on a barricade with el Presidente, protecting the clothes and jewellery of wealthy holiday-makers without the sense to realise they were not wealthy anymore and they really should have got out of Acapulco.’

‘That is a very good story, Miguel,’ she said. ‘And now I have bragging rights because I know someone who knew someone who became a real-life dictator.’

They were just two blocks from Maive’s home and crossing at an intersection when Miguel saw him. The thin streak of misery and madness; the unhinged Mormon witness he had thrown from Maive Aronson’s front porch that morning. Visibility had dropped so badly, and the man was dressed in a light grey hooded jacket, which served to camouflage him inside the flurries and swirls of snow, but Miguel had laid hands on the loco and recognised him immediately. The strange angular way he held his body, the tension in his neck and back, the way he focused intently when he saw the two of them.

The vaquero burned with a righteous anger. He struggled to maintain a tight grip on the hot gust of rage that welled up inside his breast. Maive appeared not to have noticed her tormentor, even though she stood closer to the man. He looked to be talking on a cell phone, which surprised Miguel. He had not thought that a crazy man – and the witness was most assuredly crazy – would have access to such technology, or know how to use it.

Did Kansas City even have a cell phone service? This madman was the first person he’d seen using a cellular phone in a long time. Only government people seemed to use them now.