In the back seat Benjamín’s eyes are closed. I worry the bumps and potholes are taking their toll on his wound. Panic wells up again. Why has he brought us this way? Surely it would have made more sense to head straight through Arizona? There would have been other cars then and the possibility of help. Surely anything would be better than this utter isolation? I hug the cliff wall as the track winds it way down deeper into the canyon. El Turrón seems almost as agitated as I am. ‘This way is no good.’ He leans towards the windscreen, eyes thinning as they scrutinize the blankness of the landscape ahead and suddenly there’s a flash across my peripheral vision as Benjamín makes his move.

He yanks on the steering wheel and spins it out of my hand. The truck lurches sharply towards the edge.

Instinctively, I grab at the wheel. The truck veers back towards the middle of the track but it’s too late, the next switchback looms at an impossible angle.

‘Brake!’ El Turrón yells. ‘Stop!’ The gun is so close I can see his finger begin to close around the trigger but it makes no difference. The truck has had enough. Tired and old, its brakes are arthritic and its clutch not what it used to be. It shoots off the edge with the gay abandon of an octogenarian whose dying wish to take up paragliding has finally been fulfilled, and the last thing I remember thinking is that Benjamín and I are both wearing seatbelts but Turrón is not, and though it may not seem like it right this very second, perhaps this is a very good plan indeed. Then the bottom falls sickeningly out of my stomach, the truck connects with hard earth, my head slams against the steering wheel and we begin rolling. There’s a cacophony of mashing metal and breaking glass and after that, silence.

My eyes open to a world slanted very oddly. Instead of throwing Turrón through the windscreen, as Benjamín presumably planned, the truck has landed on its side at almost a forty-five degree angle, leaving him relatively unscathed, but trapped by gravity in his corner.

‘You fucking bitch!’ he says, when he sees I’m conscious. ‘¡Estúpida!’ His struggle to raise himself ends in collapse back against the window.

‘Open the fucking door,’ he orders, but there’s no way. I haven’t the strength. My hand drifts to my fore-head and comes away sticky with blood.

‘Benjamín?’ I croak.

‘¡Puta! !Estúpida! Shut the fuck up.’ Turrón has his gun back in his hand. ‘Open the door!’

I can barely breathe. Dust whirls in through the broken window. Even if I could find the strength, I cannot move close enough to the door to get any leverage and Turrón recognizes this.

‘The window!’ He shouts. ‘Use your feet.’