And I knew with total certainty that, no matter what looked best for a cover story, I had been dead wrong to bring Edie Wren down here with me. I cursed my selfishness. I knew that she was the best person for the job. But I now knew that it had been a rotten call. This place reeked of danger.

I turned to look at her.

‘It’s going to be all right, Max,’ she said.

I shook my head. It was too late to stop now.

As I bumped across the mud towards a dozen parked vehicles near the treeline, a man stepped into my path and flagged me down with a gesture of authority that could have been learned from the CRS.

A rat the size of a neutered tom scampered across the boggy wasteland with some nameless prize in its mouth.

The man stuck his head in the car. Young, bearded, English, hair hanging down in matted blond dreadlocks.

‘What you got?’ he demanded.

‘Coats,’ I said.

‘Just coats?’ He grinned and nodded, showing a mouth full of tobacco-stained teeth. ‘Coats are good,’ he said, and I smelled the skunk on his breath. ‘You wouldn’t believe the crap that people bring with them. Books and shit. You need to check in first. See that building?’

Beyond the miserable huddle of brightly coloured tents and just before the wooden cabins began, there was a ramshackle shack built from wooden pallets.

‘You go in there and you ask to see Troy,’ the blond dread said, indicating the shack. ‘And if Troy approves your load, then you can start to distribute it.’ He indicated the cars near the trees. ‘Park over there.’

‘Troy?’ I said. ‘What’s that? First name, family name or nickname?’

A blank stare.

‘He’s just Troy.’

‘And how will we know Troy?’ I said.

A secret little smile split his face. His small teeth were the colour of weak tea.

‘Oh, you’ll know Troy,’ he said.

Edie leaned across me and gave him a friendly smile.

‘And are you and Troy working for some NGO?’ she said.

His face twisted with distaste, as if it was unseemly for us to be asking all these questions.

‘We’re here until they take down the borders,’ he said, stepping away and slapping the roof.

I bumped across the mud towards the parked cars, thinking that it was still not too late to turn the car around and go home. But in my rear-view mirror I saw the men gathering in the road, cutting off any possibility of retreat, staring at our car, and so I drove on and parked where the blond dread with the skunk breath had told me.

I locked up and we walked towards the shack built of wooden pallets. There was a stencilled sign above the door:

NO BORDERS

NO NATIONS

NO FLAGS

NO PATRIOTS

‘Who are these people?’ Edie murmured.