The village had no street lamps but enough light spilt out from the houses to light my way up the hill. I slipped past the photographers still on guard at the entrance to the cul-de-sac and up to Dominic’s mum’s bungalow. The lights were on behind net curtains and I could hear the TV inside. I stumbled over something painfully solid left on the path around the side of the building and sensed rather than saw the cowshed as a block of lighter shadow in the darkness. I carefully worked my way to the front. I was fumbling for the key when I looked up and saw the sky for the first time.

When I was very young my mum headed back to Sierra Leone with suitcases full of presents and trunks filled with enough ‘as new’ clothing to keep a branch of Oxfam in stock for a year and a half. As an afterthought, and probably to secure the additional baggage allowance, she took me with her. I don’t remember much of that trip but Mum has several albums filled exclusively with pictures of me looking in turn solemn and terrified as I am manhandled by a succession of relatives. One thing I do remember is looking up at the night sky and seeing that it was crossed by a river of stars.

I saw the same thing that night, a braided stream of light arching over my head while a quarter moon cruised the horizon. For a moment I thought I smelt a sweet slightly fermented scent and the moonlight tricked me into thinking that the empty field behind Dominic’s mum’s garden was filled with trees. But as soon as I got the lights on in the cowshed they were gone.

Operational Flexibility

3

Operational Flexibility

The sun came up before six the next morning. I lay on top of the duvet and watched blades of light pierce the gaps where the curtains met the walls. I’d left my Airwave on the pillow beside me all night and had heard the search teams up and chattering along with the dawn chorus. It was day three and the girls were still missing. I wondered what the fuck I was doing.

In the absence of coffee, I had a shower, and, by the time I was dressed, Dominic had texted me to say that he was on his way. The air was still fresh but the sun was already sucking up the moisture from the fields and you didn’t need to be chewing on a straw to know it was going to be another hot day.