It’s at this point that bad luck strikes Estella for the third and final time. The vehicle is neither full of Fantadispensing goddesses, nor border guards. It’s a shabby black camper van with a turquoise strip down the sides and it’s being driven by another coyote and two of his men, who, on finding four of their fellow citizens in dire need of emergency assistance, quickly identify the situation as an opportunity for a windfall.

The coyote’s name is El Turrón. He’s a young Mexican, no more than twenty-five, with a receding hairline, unusually small hands and a juvenile paunch. His manner is entirely pleasant as he orders his men to round up the inert Mexicans’ remaining money and valuables. While he issues these instructions he chews, littering the ground with sweet papers. His round squirrel cheeks masticate the lump of nougat, his mouth open to reveal a wide gap between his front teeth. After helping the three men lighten their load for whatever journey they might have remaining to them, El Turrón rewards himself by raping Estella.

The campesino has three sisters, all younger. Nevertheless they had married before him in quick numerical succession and it had thus fallen to him to chaperone them on dates. Innumerable times he’d sat at a table in the square while Florencio led Elena off to dance. He’d tramped a discreet ten paces behind as Ramiro walked Ysabel to and from the corner shop and by the time poor little Rosa was up for dating, he was heartily sick of the whole business.

‘It’s your duty,’ his mother had rebuked him when he finally found the nerve to complain. ‘It’s every good brother’s duty.’

Estella was neither the campesino’s sister nor even a distant cousin but he knew the burden of her protection fell to him anyway. That’s just the way it is in Mexico.

‘¡Oye! ¡Para!’ he shouts. Stop! In his head, the word sounds like a yell, but the noise that escapes his throat is barely louder than a croak. ‘¡Déjala!’ He stumbles across the road to where the buckled legs of the girl are pinned under the men. Before he can get anywhere close to pulling El Turrón off, one of the coyote’s men steps forward and, turning the gun in his hand until he holds the muzzle, strikes the campesino hard across the side of his face.