‘I know. It made no sense to me either.’ He wipes grease from his chin and grins. The smile leaves faint lines in his jaw like crevices in a rock, and aware suddenly of how close he is, I’m overcome with a desire to touch them. Then I feel the heat in my face and am thankful for the half light.

‘The INS dumped him over the border and I waited on the other side. Four, five hours I sat in that car and then finally there he was, scrambling underneath some straggly piece of barbed wire with this surprised look on his face when he saw I was there.’ He breaks off with a laugh. “Toribio Romo!” he shouted.’

‘Toribio what?’

‘Santo Toribio Romo!’

‘Who’s he?’

‘Ah well, since you ask, he’s the patron saint of migrants.’

‘Benjamín called you a saint?’

‘Ironic, I agree, considering I’d never had even a vaguely altruistic notion in my life . . . But apparently the man was astonishingly handsome, so you can see how there might be confusion. Anyway, Santo Toribio Romo, or Holy Illegal Alien Smuggler, as Benjamín likes to call him, is quite a legend round here.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Well, he was a cleric murdered during the Cristano war in the late twenties. He lay low on his saintly duties for a while but popped up about thirty years ago and has been helping people ever since.’

‘Ghostly apparition, white wings sort of a thing?’

‘Not at all, he shows up in flesh and blood, dispensing water, food, dollars and even job information. People think he’s a bona fide nice guy.’

‘Until . . .’

‘Until in return for whatever help he’s given, he asks them to go to Jalostotitlán, his home town, to pray for him – and Mexicans, being obedient, religious people, do exactly that. When they get to the town, they’re directed to a little church and there, lo and behold, they find his picture above the altar and his bones lying in a casket.’

‘Great story.’

‘It is a very good story,’ he agrees.

‘So Benjamín canonized you and you decided to lay your bones in Temerosa.’

‘Well as we apologists are so fond of saying . . . seemed like a good idea at the time.’

‘What about your old life, your real life?’

‘My real life?’ he repeats.

‘You know, family, friends, a weekly pay cheque.’ I toss it out lightly enough, but I know nothing about Duval’s former life except that when Benjamín found him he’d been teaching Latin American studies back in his old university where he believed that with enough passion and energy he could put the world to rights.

‘And you?’ He kicks a piece of wood back into the fire. ‘What precipitated your flight from London?’

I shake my head. ‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Why not?’

‘Too random. Too prosaic.’

He takes a swig of beer. ‘Tell me anyway.’