‘I’m Max,’ I said. I reached out to shake his hand. He pinched the tears out of his eyes with his thumb and forefinger across the bridge of his nose and looked up at me. He hesitated for a moment, and then we clasped our palms together. He was beautiful, and by the look of him hardly out of his teens. His chin was fuzzed over with straggly, grimy bumfluff that looked like it had never seen a razor. He was lucky to be alive. We both were.

‘Bhavneet,’ he said. And then, awkwardly formal, ‘Bhavneet Singh.’ He took his hand back, but didn’t stop staring at me. ‘People call me “Baaz”, though,’ he added.

‘OK, Baaz,’ I said; and then, half-laughing at his earnestness, ‘How d’y’do?’

He lifted his palms and breathed out through his nose as if to say: How does it look as if I’m doing?

‘Before they tried to …’ I thought better of the question and cleared my throat, shifting up on to my haunches. ‘You’re Punjabi, right?’

‘Right.’

‘From India?’

He nodded. ‘From Chandigarh. I …’ He stared at me. ‘Those men,’ he said. ‘They were looking for you, weren’t they?’

It was my turn to nod. ‘What were they asking you?’

‘I don’t know. They weren’t speaking English.’ He tentatively touched the black cotton binding his hair, making sure it was still tied securely. I wondered if he’d lost his turban in the water. ‘Maybe they were asking which way you’d gone?’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Try to remember. What did it sound like, what they said? The words?’

‘I don’t know. Kuda-something, maybe. I think they were Russian.’ The sarcasm flared up. ‘I wasn’t, you know, really paying attention.’

‘Could have been Kuda on devalsya,’ I replied. ‘It’s Russian for “Where did he disappear to?”’

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Are you Russian? You sound Irish.’

‘I am,’ I said. ‘Irish, I mean. Well, mostly. That’s complicated, too.’

‘I see,’ he said. ‘Well, I tried to get free, and, ah …’ He paused for a moment. The adrenaline of a succession of near-misses had begun to abate and tears welled in his eyes again. ‘And then the bastards tried to do me in.’

‘OK, that’s good,’ I said.

‘Good?’ He wiped his eyes again. ‘How is any of this bullshit good?’

‘Because if they asked you where I was, it meant they weren’t tracking me. At least not down here. Which means now they’re not tracking you. And believe me,’ I added, ‘that’s good.’

I supposed that once they’d realized he couldn’t help them, they’d tried to drown him. When – if – his body had been found, he’d have looked like just another unlucky explorer fallen foul of the catacombs. He breathed out hard. He was trying to keep himself together. For a kid who’d just survived his first firefight, he was doing well.