‘So much for the grand royal palaces, huge great big columns and treasure vaults filled with gold and jewels,’ Wolf said, frowning in disappointment. ‘Not quite what I’d imagined. You’d think a lost city would look like something a little more than a rubble field.’

‘She’s not here,’ Ben said. ‘I don’t know where she is.’

‘Yeah, I can see that too, mate. I don’t know what to say. Looks like we came here on a wild goose chase.’

Ben had no reply. He hung his head and felt the energy leak from his body.

‘Face it, Ben. There never really was much hope of finding her,’ Wolf said, trying to sound consoling. ‘You must have known that from the start. Right?’

Ben nodded. He sat down heavily on a rock, feeling his legs strangely weak under him.

‘It’s shit,’ Wolf said. ‘The shittiest of the shitty. I understand how you’re feeling. Or at least, I think I do. But at times like this there’s nothing a guy can do except move on and tell himself that there’s other people out there he can help. Lots of them.’

Ben said nothing.

Wolf looked as though he wanted to say more, but couldn’t find the words and just stood there, offering his friend the support and companionship of his presence if nothing else. Ben stayed silent. This was the moment he’d feared the most, and part of him must have indeed known that it was extremely likely, almost inevitable, that he’d arrive here at the end of his journey only to find a patch of empty ground. That the chances were very strong she hadn’t even made it out of Kabul alive. That he’d been kidding himself all along with wishful thinking. Chasing shadows. Searching for a corpse. His dreams had told him as much, but he’d wilfully ignored them like the damn fool he was. And now here he was.

He suddenly felt very tired. Worn out to the point of collapse, as though he’d aged a hundred years in the space of two minutes and all the strength was sapped out of him. He stared at the red disc of the sun slowly dipping into the band of purple-tinged clouds across the eastern horizon. As the last rays faded, the air was already turning colder. In his low state of mind it seemed to Ben there was something ominously final about the setting of the sun, like a death, as though its light and warmth were ebbing away for the very last time and it wouldn’t ever return. As though some part of him was dying along with it.