‘Turn in your resignation,’ said Stanton. ‘Take a holiday. Phone in sick …’

Porter smiled, but remained silent. He walked slowly towards the bus. A couple of women were climbing on board, buying their tickets, talking to each other. Porter handed across a Lebanese ten-pound note, collected his ticket, then nodded towards Stanton. ‘Thanks for your help,’ he said tersely.

The bus was already running ten minutes late by the time it pulled out of Sidon and started wheezing its way up the hill inland. Porter had positioned himself near the centre of the bus, keeping himself as inconspicuous as possible. The two women in front of him were still chattering away: there were obviously a lot of unfaithful husbands and disloyal daughters in Sidon to catch up on, thought Porter. There were a few old men, a couple of families, and several schoolchildren scattered around the vehicle. Some of them were talking. But mostly, just like Porter, they were looking out of the window and keeping themselves to themselves.

The journey took just over an hour, twisting along the only main road that led up into the mountains that ran along the spine of the coast then down again into the valleys and plains below. There were some farms you could see stretched along the side of the road, growing dates, oranges, lemons and chickpeas, with the occasional herd of goats chewing the grasslands between the orchards and the fields. But the evidence of war was everywhere. Farms that had been abandoned were slowly being taken over by weeds, trees and scrub. Barns and houses that had been broken up by RPGs and mortar fire, roads that had been smashed to rubble, and the occasional burnt-out husk of a tank, or the familiar dugouts used to shelter a machine-gun crew, littered the side of the road.

That’s what soldiers leave behind, thought Porter to himself. Lots of shattered communities, and broken lives. Not much of an advertisement for the trade.

Jezzoine wasn’t the last stop on the route but it was where Porter was getting off. He climbed from the bus, and out onto the tarmac of the bus station, glancing quickly around. The clouds were heavier now. It was just after five in the afternoon, and although sunset was still some way ahead, the light was already growing murky. Sidon may not have been much of a place, thought Porter, but compared with Jezzoine, it was Biarritz. There were just three buses waiting at the station, and the tarmac was pitted with holes: some of them might have been left there by shells, but most of them were there because nobody had bothered to fill them up at any time in the last fifty years. The ticket office had shut, and a dog was prowling around it menacingly. Glancing across the street into the town, Porter could see a couple of beatenup cafés, with a group of surly-looking men outside, sipping cups of thick, black coffee, and one shop selling some food, hardware and car parts.