It was the wrong question. I thought of Feisal, making jokes and worrying about his mother and falling, falling and screammg, trying to warn me with what might have been his last breath. I turned on her like a madwoman.

‘Hurt me! He was . . .’ It was the wrong tense, too. I threw her lipstick wildly at her. ‘Damn it, why I am I standing here doing stupid things to my stupid face? Maybe he’s not dead. Maybe he’s . . . just dying and being tortured and – ’

‘Take it easy, honey.’

‘And don’t call me honey!’

I thought I had behaved quite rationally and reasonably until Joanie escorted me to a small room that was obviously an infirmary or clinic. Another motherly grey-haired woman, wearing a sweater over her white uniform, rose to greet us.

‘So this is the young lady. Welcome home, my dear. We’re all so relieved to see you.’

I felt as if I were being smothered in cotton candy. They closed in on me, one on each side, and Tom entered, barring my way to the door.

‘How is she, Frances?’ he inquired, rubbing his hands and smiling. He thought the worst was over. He was in for a shock.

‘I haven’t had a chance to look at her. If you’ll just sit down, Miss Bliss – ’

I started to argue. Then, belatedly, I realized what I had done. Defending Feisal had been a bad mistake. Hostages sometimes end up identifying with their captors, and when the captor is young and handsome and the hostage is female . . . I made a last desperate effort to control myself, but in retrospect I admit I didn’t succeed very well.

‘What are you going to do?’ I demanded, backing away from the nurse. ‘I won’t have any shots. I hate shots.’

‘Just your blood pressure and pulse,’ the nurse said, as she would have spoken to a child. ‘No nasty shots, I promise.’

‘All right.’ I let her push me into a chair and fixed Tom with what I intended to be a firm, unhysterical look. It must have been more like a wild-eyed glare. ‘You stand there and listen to me.’

‘Believe me, Dr Bliss, there are a number of people who want nothing better than to listen to you. But,’ he added, with the first touch of kindly consideration he had displayed, ‘I’m damned if I’m going to let them at you until I’m sure you’re okay. I called your – uh – your friend. He’s on his way.’

‘My friend?’ A wild hope dawned. Had Schmidt and John made it? If they had caught the 10 a.m. train . . .

‘Yes.’ Tom smiled. ‘He’s been calling every hour on the hour.’

‘Normal,’ the nurse announced, unwinding the blood pressure cuff. She sounded disappointed.

‘I told you so. Now – ’

‘Open wide.’

She propped my mouth open with a stick and peered in.