Set into the earth was a rough concrete square with a rusted iron ring at each corner. Smiler and the guard laid James on it and began to tie his wrists and ankles tightly with leather thongs.

The young guard had a knobbly Adam’s apple and a handsome, vain face. He was trying to show off to Smiler how tough he was. He chuckled as they tied James down and when they had finished he kicked him in the side. Smiler swore at him and the guard sloped off to sit on a rotten stump, smoke cigarettes and sulk.

Smiler took one last look at James, then followed Ugo and the others out of the swamp.

James shook his head as a mosquito landed on his face. It walked over his lips and he tried to blow it away with his nostrils. Another insect was crawling round his left wrist and he felt a third one in his ear. He twisted his head and scraped it against the concrete and the mosquito flew off briefly into the air with a zipping sound, before landing casually on his chest and rubbing its proboscis between its long front legs.

This was hopeless. He couldn’t hope to shake off each individual insect; already he could see that four more had joined the one on his wrist. He wiggled his fingers but it had no effect; they were going to have their meal and nothing was going to stop them.

James could picture more of them, hundreds of them, homing in on him from all round this ghastly swamp. Zigzagging towards him, black and ugly; thin now, but soon to be bloated with his blood.

He felt utterly alone and didn’t know where he was going to get the strength from to make it through the long, dark night ahead.

23

23

Deadlier Than the Male

James was in a world of pain. The itching was terrible. He wanted to scratch his whole body, but all he could do was strain and writhe uselessly on his back as the mosquitoes drank his blood. They were all over him, and every second more arrived. They were teeming over his chest, his ankles, his arms, his neck, their spindly legs tickling his skin. They were in a cloud around his head; filling the night with a ceaseless, whining drone. They were flying into his ears, the noise so loud it felt like they were drilling through to his brain.

How he hated the creatures. It was as if God had done all he could to make them repulsive; they looked vile, they had vile habits, and they sounded vile. There was nothing appealing about a mosquito.

The first ones to arrive had been tiny, but, as evening had drawn in, larger ones had arrived, great fat brown things that flew lazily through the air and stuck their feeders into him right up to their ugly faces.