When it was over he reached across the table and patted the man’s forearm and then gave him what was left of the packet of cigarettes. He leaned back on his chair and then, almost as an afterthought, took the photograph of the man’s wife and child, studied it as if he was committing it to memory before placing it in the breast pocket of the prisoner’s shirt and patting it gently. As Donovan stood up, the man looked at him and asked when he would get traded. It was the strongest voice he had mustered.

‘Soon, very soon,’ Donovan answered in French as he signalled to me that we were leaving.

‘When?’ the man asked again, the bloodied tears at the side of his mouth making it look like that of a battered ventriloquist’s dummy.

But Donovan was hammering on the door and didn’t reply when the question was asked a third time and I heard myself repeat the first given answer of ‘Soon, very soon’, and when the door was eventually opened I didn’t look back.

Neither of us spoke as we retreated down the corridors and I tried to tell myself that their claustrophobic power was unravelling as each step took us closer to daylight. When eventually we reached outside Donovan paused to light a cigarette then said, ‘I don’t know about you, Mikey, but I need a drink. Might even tip a few. That place gives me the heebie-jeebies.’ And if I didn’t know him better I might have thought he shivered a little.

‘Should we wait for the doctor?’

‘The doctor? There’s no doctor coming, Mikey.’

‘But you told them to get a doctor.’

‘For the optics.’

He started to walk but I didn’t follow and instead asked him what he meant. He didn’t respond and, as I watched him stride away, I suddenly understood.

‘You had him beaten. It was you,’ I called after him.

‘Those bastards don’t know when to stop, that’s the problem,’ he said, turning to look at me. ‘I guess they enjoy it too much. Sometimes a little gentle physical persuasion is needed to tip the scales – just to tip the balance in the right direction. Those goons have no sense of proportion – that’s the problem.’

I wanted to tell him he was a bastard, wanted to tell him that I was done with him, but instead I simply shook my head in the only form of defiance I was able to muster.

‘Now, Mikey, please don’t go all Boy Scout on me. I told you once before: this isn’t summer camp. And before you start to make a song and dance out of it, you should remind yourself of what they’ve done to our people.’ He walked towards me and threw the cigarette into the gutter as if it was a distraction. ‘Tortured half to death, starved and left to rot in bamboo cages. So please, Mikey, whatever speech you’re about to give now, don’t make an asshole of yourself and don’t give me the benefit of your wisdom because I decided a long time ago you don’t know shit about anything.’