Ramin had a slightly different story to tell. He’d worked for a while as a researcher and copywriter for the Kabul Cultural Institute, but his main focus was his activity blogging, in which his main – in fact his sole, he admitted – theme was to attack and denounce the Taliban and its leaders. Like many young urban Muslims he regarded himself as a liberal and a progressive, and dreaded what might happen to his country if they seized full control. He also despised them for their acts of vandalism against irreplaceable sites of historic heritage, like the giant Buddha statues harking back to Afghanistan’s sixth-century past, blown to smithereens on the orders of Taliban leader Mullah Omar for being un-Islamic and idolatrous. As the takeover had become more and more imminent, Ramin had only doubled down on his scathing criticisms of the fundamentalists, posting material so inflammatory that it was sure to make him a target for punishment. It had worked perhaps better than he might have wished for. As the old order fell apart with stunning speed and the fighters came flooding into the city, Ramin found himself a marked man.

‘They have lists of people they want to kill,’ he complained. ‘I was on one of them. Alhamdulillah I wasn’t at home when they paid me a visit, or I would be dead now. Thrown off a tall building, my tongue sliced out, I can’t bear even to imagine.’ It was clear from his haunted expression that Ramin’s imagination was hard at work, nonetheless.

‘Maybe you shouldn’t have tried so hard to piss them off,’ Wolf suggested.

Ramin shrugged. ‘There it is. Now what could I do? I couldn’t go home again. There’s an attic room at the Institute we only use for storing old books and files. I was hiding there when Madison and Aziz found me.’

‘You left the door open,’ Madison remarked. ‘Lucky it was us.’

Ramin went on, ‘And they told me they were getting out of the city. I jumped at the chance. But what a journey. I’ve never been so afraid.’

The conversation returned to the incident with the bandits who’d tried to raid their camp. Wolf wanted to hear the story, but Madison was being coy about it.

‘She beat one of them over the head with a shovel,’ Aziz said, laughing. ‘And kicked another in the …’ – glancing at the priest – ‘that is to say, in the groin area.’ He pointed downwards, for clarity.

‘I abhor violence in all its forms,’ the priest said. ‘But one must confess it was a relief for the situation to be resolved in that manner. The villains beat a hasty retreat.’