‘Yes, it is my truck, it’s just that it’s new – well new to me, anyway, and somebody else bought it on my behalf and ...’

‘Ma’am, it’s a requirement of Arizonan law that registration and insurance documents be kept in the vehicle.’

‘Oh,’ I say vaguely, keeping a nervous ear tuned to the whispering coming from the back seat. ‘Well ... maybe they are in the vehicle! I mean, where might they be?’

The cop leans through the window and flips open the glove compartment. Inside is a plastic bag of official-looking papers and I send up a silent prayer of thanks to Benjamín.

‘Are you going to scalpel us?’ Emmy now bellows.

‘Emmy! Be quiet!’ I turn round. ‘Jack, will you stop it!’

‘Stop what?’ he queries.

The boy unsheathes the papers from their bag and painstakingly begins writing on his pad.

‘Did you know you were speeding, Mrs Coleman?’

Heigh-ho.

‘The speed limit on this road is fifty mph. You were making sixty.’

‘Gosh,’ I say weakly, ‘who would have thought this old thing could go that fast.’

‘Do you have a gun?’ Jack says.

The boy/cop stops writing. ‘Uh-huh.’

‘What about a knife?’

‘Yuh.’ He slides a penknife out of a hard-leather pouch attached to his belt. ‘You want to see it?’

‘Does it have leftover brains on it?’

‘Nuh-uh.’ He puts it away again. ‘I just cleaned it.’

In the mirror I see Jack’s mouth form a silent Oh.

‘Mrs Coleman.’ The cop tears off the ticket. ‘The fine for speeding is a hundred dollars.’

‘A hundred!’

‘Yes, a hundred dollars. You can pay me now.’

‘Or?’

‘Excuse me, ma’am?’

‘Well what if I can’t pay you now?’

‘Mrs Coleman, if you don’t pay me you have to follow me back to town and we have to go see the judge.’

‘At this time of day?’ I say craftily. ‘Won’t the judge have gone home?’

He shrugs. ‘Then you can stay in town till morning.’

‘In prison?’ Jack says. ‘That would be so cool.’

‘Come on, Mummy, in jail! Can we?’ Emmy is drunk with excitement.

Throwing myself on the cop’s mercy, I swear I will never speed again and explain that today is literally my first day in America.

‘Certainly is not,’ Jack says. ‘Liar.’

‘Liar, liar, pants on fire,’ Emmy croons.

‘I’m sorry, ma’am.’

Defeated, I reach for my bag. The boy relieves me of five twenties and hands back the registration documents.

‘Well, don’t be in too big a hurry, Mrs Coleman.’ He slaps the side of the window cheerfully. ‘I spend a lot of time pulling freeway drivers like yourself off that Temerosa road.’

‘I’m sure you do.’ I eye him sourly, quite sure he’s going to pocket the money for himself.

‘Are you a cop?’ Jack says.

‘What’s your name?’ Emmy asks.

‘Because you don’t look like a cop,’ Jack adds.