I wait for the water to boil, staring listlessly out of the window. How differently this could have all turned out. How close to disaster we had been. I press my forehead against the cold glass feeling numb with exhaustion and anticlimax then, for want of anything better to do, pull the brimming garbage bag from its bin and open the back door. The sky is the colour of pewter, the trunks of the trees like charcoal sketches beneath it. In an hour or so the sun will be up. I stow the bag in the big trash container and squash the lid back on top – and then I hear it. The growl of an engine. I stiffen, paranoid suddenly that we might have been followed home. Kalashnikovs, kidnap, blood on the floorboards and Emilio Chavez shaking his head sorrowfully: ‘I don’t suppose anyone will ever find the bodies of those poor Colemans.’

The noise of the engine grows louder. I press quickly against the wall as a truck rattles by then stare after it through the rising dust. Maybe it’s Benjamín, heading home, a six-pack of beer on the seat beside him. Maybe it’s Duval, once again steering along the curves of the Temerosa road at an unsociable hour. But either way, why from the direction of the boarding house? There is nothing beyond Temerosa but mountain and desert except . . . except, of course, that’s not true, is it? There’s an old road through those mountains, Chavez had said, one used by coyotes and smugglers, and I picture Duval’s tail lights disappearing towards the boarding house the night of the Ague meeting. Maybe Duval had left something behind, Benjamín had suggested, and maybe he had, but in retrospect I wish I’d investigated further, taken action of some kind.

So now I do.

I pull on my gumboots and run after the truck, rank with suspicion. Round the first corner, then the second. I can taste the dust in my mouth, feel it stinging my eyes. The sound of the engine cuts out and I freeze then glance back towards the cabin. I dare not leave Emmy more than a few minutes, but I have to see, I have to know. I creep towards the next bend, keeping close to the trunks of the oaks, and peer round.