‘I’d have to go on foot,’ he said, relenting after a pause. ‘And it’d have to be a quick search.’

Madison brightened. ‘Quicker if you’ve got help. I’ll come too. We both will.’

‘Absolutely not. She has to stay here.’

‘But she knows better than we do what Vida looks like. What if we brought back the wrong thing?’

‘I don’t like it,’ Ben said. He could feel his resolve beginning to crack completely under the pressure that only Madison Cahill seemed able to put on him.

‘But you’ll do it to please her, won’t you? And me.’

There was no argument against that. Soon afterwards they were back outside and returning once more down the slope, Ben carrying Madison’s AK-47 and his pistol tucked in his belt, Madison clutching the little girl’s hand as she scrambled nimbly over the rocks like a baby chamois.

The fire pit near the ruins had been covered over with loose stone and the bloody remains of the butchered goats carefully hidden. The girl’s tears were all dried up now as she led them through the shattered buildings to where she’d remembered she might have dropped Vida. She explained to Ben in a flood of rapid-fire Pashto how it had all happened so fast, with Mère Blanchet trying to get them out before the bad men came. In all the confusion she’d suddenly realised she didn’t have Vida any more, but then it was too late to go back for her and Mère Blanchet grabbed her arm and wouldn’t let go, saying ‘Come on! We have to hurry!’

The doll wasn’t where Gulnaz thought it was. They hunted all around for fifteen minutes, to no avail. Ben hated having to do it, but he was on the verge of declaring an end to the search when Madison let out a cry and pointed to a tiny rag foot sticking out from under a piece of collapsed wall. Ben laid down the AK and heaved the broken blocks away – and there was Vida, dusty and bedraggled, a little scorched, but otherwise unharmed. The child hugged her beloved doll to her chest with a squeal of happiness.

That was when Ben caught a fleeting movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned to see a figure running away from the ruins. A small figure; for an illogical instant he thought it was one of the other orphans, having followed them down the hill. But then he realised it was a young boy, no more than about twelve, dressed in baggy trousers and an oversized green jacket that billowed in the wind as he belted away for all he was worth.