I didn’t know how to process what had happened at the Hacienda in any logical way. But as it turned out, the mute thing helped massively. Doctors, police, Raf’s family, they all came into my room one by one and in pairs, firing myriad questions at me about what had been going on, why the children were there, who the men were, where Tenoch was, whether I had been kept as a sex slave. I had my backstory, signed and sealed already. I just had to fill in a few blank pages.

The police seemed content that Paco and the Chipmunks had been wiped off the Earth and the ballistics report matched mine and Celestina’s story of what happened that day at the Hacienda. Ming and Arturo had been shot by Paco and she had killed Stuzzy and Paco in self-defence. Tenoch and Dr Gonzales had done a bunk at some point two days before. But where to, that was unknown. There was a rumour, just a rumour mind you, that Tenoch had in his possession over a hundred million dollars. Maybe more. No wonder Paco had been blinded by greed.

For once in my life, I hadn’t killed anyone. Well, not recently anyway.

As far as my side of the story was concerned, that checked out too. It was all there on the system: a young woman with my name, aged 29, originally from England, who grew up in the care system and had moved to New York in her early twenties to study at NYU. Birthdate: 25 September 1990; Blood Type: B+; Civil Status: single; same social security number. She’d ditched her course, due to stress, and gone on the road. The next time she’d shown up on government computers had been in Odessa, Texas a year later where she’d got a library card and a job as an administrative assistant for a realtor in El Paso.

If reincarnation does exist, knowing my luck I’ll still come back working in fucking admin.

Anyway, in October 2016, the girl left her home in El Paso and hit the road again, went off the radar. Presumed dead. Until now.

‘I got in with a bad lot,’ I said, as though that would explain where I’d been for the past three years. ‘I was hitchhiking along the Baja Peninsula one day and Tenoch picked me up, gave me a home, a job. He was good to me.’

Beltran bought it. They all bought it, even Raf’s family. I was a runaway, who’d showed up at the home of an ex-cartel hitman. There I’d been put to work as a cleaner and that was that. But Raf’s mother Bianca knew there was more to it. Why else had I been at the airport that day we first met?