And I think to hell with it. Why is it we all spend so much of life subjugating every emotion, always covering ourselves? For what? To prove we don’t care? So that ultimately we can applaud ourselves for feeling less?

‘I think you know,’ I say and his eyes hold mine for an instant before he turns back to the road.

Unlike Nogales, an all-singing, all-dancing border drama, Douglas, Arizona, feels like a town close to death. The streets are quiet except for an old campesino poppered into a vibrant striped shirt and a couple of nervy-looking youths bouncing on their hightops. Nevertheless we find La Mariposa almost immediately, a dark, low-ceilinged restaurant full of working Mexicans in cowboy hats. A sluggish wooden fan circulates cigarette smoke and coffee steam into a general feel-good haze. I stand behind Duval in the entrance and peer through the fog. In front of us, eight policemen are eating enormous platefuls of enchiladas smothered in sauce and cheese.

‘Over there.’ Duval’s gaze has settled on a table far to the back where a middle-aged man in a caramel-coloured suit is scanning the newspaper. ‘I’ll cut off my pinky without anaesthetic if that’s not the guy.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘Winfred mentioned he was something of a snappy dresser.’ It had been Winfred’s voice that had woken us this morning, hissing with static on Duval’s radio. He’d finally set up a meeting with the informant he’d been so excited about finding and we’d barely had time to sneak back to Temerosa and grab a change of clothes.

I follow Duval’s bemused glance down to the man’s feet, which are encased in a pair of two-tone shoes that look suspiciously like spats.

‘Good day, my friends,’ he says as we sit down, and if there’s an imperceptible raising of eyebrows at my appearance, they’re lowered quickly enough. He folds his paper with precision, laying it to one side and shaking our hands then motioning to the waiter for coffee.

Post-introductions, Esteban segues easily into the familiar conversation of someone catching up with old dear friends after a prolonged absence. Life? Yes, well it wasn’t so bad. His family was healthy, and his job (quality-assessment manager for a medical supplies company) kept him busy. Politically, his country was even more isolationist since 9/11, and his hopes for Fox working some kind of economic magic were fading. While he talks, he studies us with small, inquisitive eyes and I get the impression he’s sizing us up, deciding just exactly how much information to divulge.