I hold on to the seatbelt with one hand and grab the leather strap with the other, laboriously turning my body until it’s possible to reach the side window with the soles of my sneakers. The shattered glass gives way easily.

‘Now get out,’ Turrón orders. Totally compliant, I plant a foot on the central divide, and, hanging on to the leather strap for dear life, terrified of falling onto him, unclip my seatbelt. I get my feet through the window and drop down onto the desert floor.

I think about running, but Benjamín lies unconscious in the back of the truck and, besides, my legs are shaking. ‘Open the door,’ Turrón shouts again and I open it. Noisily, he begins his climb out. Blood spots through my trousers. Something sharp is cutting into my thigh. My fingers close around Duval’s arrowhead, still in my pocket. I work the sharpened end upwards until it pokes between my index and middlefingers, then ball my hand into a fist. Turrón lowers himself stiffly to the ground. The left side of his face is swelling grotesquely. His ear is torn and bleeding. ‘Fucking bitch,’ he says. His eyes are burning and I know that right now, with this man, anything can happen.

He takes a step towards me and I lash out. The tip of the arrowhead slices open a long red line across his face. He looks at me in astonishment, then fury. He grabs my hair and twists it round in his hand, dragging me away from the truck, and my fear becomes a solid thing. It rises up from my stomach and collects in my throat. I turn my head and retch it out on the desert floor, but there is nothing there, just saliva and bile. Turrón regards me with distaste.

‘Wipe your mouth. WIPE IT!’

I use my sleeve. I find a scrubby-looking plant on the ground and focus on it, trying to look as submissive and unthreatening as possible. Turrón wrenches my head back by the hair. ‘You stink.’ He mashes something against my mouth. When I turn my head, he slaps my face. My teeth clamp down on my tongue and my jaw opens involuntarily with pain. Turrón seizes his chance and presses the square of nougat into it. I gag, then with rising panic feel myself choking. Irrationally, I have a vision of Jack and Emmy spitting out the sweets in Chavez’s office and I know it’s because they’re fussy and unwilling to try anything new, but the idea that my brilliant children sensed something I did not makes me smile. Turrón doesn’t like the smile. His hand whips across my face again and this time I go down on my hands and knees.