‘Mummy . . .’ she holds on to my arm under the covers, ‘aren’t you happy Daddy’s here?’

‘Of course I am, darling, of course I am.’ Mindlessly, I stroke her hair until my hand feels unbearably heavy and the darkness of the room sweeps over me like the blue-black of a raven’s wing.

I wake to a halo of red light on the horizon. It’s three-thirty. Extricating myself from Emmy’s octopus-like grip, I hurry to the big window in my room. In the east, a gibbous moon throws a hazy light over the escarpment of the mountains. The reddish glow is coming from the south. From the direction of the schoolroom. I jackknife with fear. Fire. It looks like fire. I stand fixated, in an agony of uncertainty, until the growl of a truck jerks me from numbness and almost immediately a pair of headlights swing round the corner from the direction of the town. Duval! Benjamín! The engine cuts, a figure jumps out, but there’s no mistaking the heavy set of the shoulders and the square-cut silhouette of his head.

‘Robert, what happened?’ I say, but he pushes past me through the door and collapses onto the sofa. He puts his head in his hands.

‘What is it?’ I say urgently.

He groans.

‘Are you hurt? What happened?’ I kneel beside him and drag his hands from his face. ‘Robert, talk to me!’

‘Alice, oh, God.’ He fumbles me to him. His breath smells sour. He groans again. ‘What have I done? What have I done?’

‘Yes, what have you done?’ I ask sharply, and when he still doesn’t answer, shake him. ‘Robert!’

‘I had no idea.’ He raises tormented eyes. ‘I should have listened to you. Why didn’t I listen to you?’

‘For God’s sake. Just tell me what happened.’ Struggling not to beat him with my fists, I take his hand and squeeze it and finally he starts talking.

They’d driven as far as they could in the vehicles, then continued on foot. Robert had been uncomfortable, in the wrong clothes – in the wrong shoes, but eventually Hogan had stopped and made everyone take up a position in a line, each person finding cover a few hundred yards beyond the next. It was to be like a stake-out, Hogan explained. They would rest up a couple of hours and see what moved. And at that point, everything had seemed fine. In fact it had been exciting, a bit like deer stalking, except . . . well, except Robert had been close to Tucker and had been worried that the boy was secretly drinking . . .

‘And . . .?’

‘Eventually, we spotted a group of people in the da—’

‘How many!’

‘I don’t know. I saw them through the night-vision goggles. They were walking one behind the other and I thought this is it, this is it.’

‘Yes, but how many were there?’ I say, sounding almost as agonized as he does.