This time, he drove first back into the centre of the town, where he found a dingy, smoke-filled backstreet café and ate a small lunch of barbecued chicken and kaftaji, washed down with Pepsi and a couple of Imodium – he hadn’t got a local’s stomach.

He ordered a second kaftaji, wrapped in aluminium foil, as a takeaway for later, and left, heading east towards Ras Ajdir, the northernmost border crossing into Libya, seventy-odd kilometres distant.

He had a feeling of great calmness upon him – the sense that what he was doing was pre-ordained, and that he was being watched over by a great benevolence.

Occasionally, fear did arise from the hidden depths of his subconscious, bringing with it the beautiful faces of Farzana and precious Aalia.

For him, death was never far away, and he had many times imagined his wife hearing the news, imagined her telling their daughter that daddy would not be coming home.

Unable to explain why.

No grave to visit.

No final call home.

Nothing but memories – memories which would fade until he was just a ghost.

Whenever he imagined that – and he tried hard to push it out of his mind – it brought a lump to his throat.

He feared for his wife and daughter, he had to admit that.

But, truly, he did not fear death itself.

He was a soldier, engaged in the greatest war of all, and if it was his time, then it was his time.

But Allah protected the righteous, and – though others would certainly have disagreed – Zeff Mahsoud firmly believed that he was among that number.

So he was able to harden his heart and push his wife and daughter away from his thoughts.

He was ready for a thorough interrogation at the Ben Gardane border post, but the Mercedes had several boxes of T-shirts in the boot, and he was hoping to pass as a day trader.

He was indeed pulled to one side by a couple of guards, who gave his passport a cursory examination and told him to get out of the vehicle.

‘Why are you going over the border?’ said one of the men, a beady-eyed character with acne scars and a thin moustache.

‘I’m going to Zuwara,’ said Mahsoud, in his halting tounsi. ‘I have things to sell to the market stall holders.’

‘Open up,’ said the guard.

Mahsoud clicked the boot open.

The guard pulled his AK47 over his shoulder, reached in, and opened the boxes.

‘Just T-shirts,’ said Mahsoud.

The guard said nothing, but delved to the bottom of each box, feeling for any contraband.

Eventually, satisfied, he took a handful of the shirts, and spread them out on the bonnet.

‘Tommy Hilfiger,’ he said, approvingly. ‘Genuine?’

‘No,’ said Mahsoud, with an apologetic smile. ‘But they’re the best copies you’ll find. And the labels are real.’

‘How much?’ said the guard.