‘What does it matter! I don’t know.’ He cries.

‘Okay, okay,’ I try to calm him, ‘just tell me what happened.’

When the line of Mexicans got close enough, Hogan and the others revealed themselves. They stood up and produced their weapons, forcing the illegals first to their knees, then down on their stomachs. ‘It was all going according to plan,’ Robert said, ‘they were no trouble.’ In fact he’d been surprised at just how subservient they were – all except one. Bob was having difficulty securing the plastic tie around the illegal’s wrists and the Mexican had begun swearing and shouting.

‘I don’t know what he was saying, I didn’t understand,’ Robert says, but it was at that point that everything started to unravel. Tucker shot his gun into the air ... a woman screamed. ‘A woman, Alice. I hadn’t thought . . .’ He tails off and my fear overspills again.

‘What did she look like? Who else was with her? How many people exactly in the group?’

Robert looks up at me with a sort of tired frustration, as though I have completely missed the point. ‘Why does it matter? I don’t know, nine, ten, eleven maybe, I couldn’t see properly, none of them dared look us in the eye and besides they were all on their stomachs . . .’

And I’m thinking ten people. Not Dolores, not Benjamín or Duval, just another random group of strangers shackling themselves to fate.

‘Tucker struck the Mexican with his gun. He went down, but before I could move, something came out of the dark, like a ghost.’ He shudders. ‘I suppose it was one of the other wetbacks but it was all so confusing. Bob got pulled off his horse right in front of my eyes . . . there were more shots, then all hell broke loose and I . . . I . . .’

‘What, Robert, what?’

‘My gun jammed.’ He looks incredulously at his hands, as though he was seeing the Mossberg still in them. ‘I never meant to fire it in the first place.’ His voice rises. ‘I wasn’t even aiming it, I swear – but there was so much happening and everyone was so jumpy .. . I panicked, I just panicked . . . Bob threw me his knife . . .’ He covers his face again and grimly I realize there’s worse to come. ‘Alice, I think I may have killed someone.’

The words slam into me. I fight for breath, stand up. Robert grabs at my hand.

‘Don’t look at me like that, Alice. Please don’t look at me like that. I don’t know – I can’t really remember, there were others close to me, people were shooting, there was a black car driving round in circles, everyone running all at once, but then someone came straight at me and I don’t know . . .’

‘Robert! Oh, God,’ I whisper, and I cannot keep the disgust from my voice.