Voices all around him, still deep, strangely low. ‘It looks like the two plus one more,’ says a voice.

Then somebody lifts Jacob or maybe drags him by his arms up to his feet, someone shoves him, and he turns his head and sees them doing the same thing to George and Yassim, pushing them all towards the vans.

‘Who are you?’ George shouts now. ‘What the hell are you doing? What right do you have to detain me?’

‘I’m serious,’ one of the men in black says. ‘Shut your mouth now.’

When they get to the van someone opens the door. They push Yassim up the steps and then George.

Jacob has just put his foot onto the step when a shot rings out through the frozen darkness, and he stops short. The men in black do too. Then they turn in the direction the shot came from and see the whole sky illuminated by white, electric light.

25 November

Bergort

When Klara opens her eyes, Camp Nou is bathed in light. The man who was holding the gun is stretched out flat and unmoving on his back in front of her. The grey-haired man looks around in confusion, blinking under the sudden bright light, while backing away from Klara and his lifeless colleague.

‘What the hell…’ he says.

Then they start streaming in, through the low entrance to the field. A SWAT team dressed in black with helmets on their heads and weapons in their hands.

‘Police!’ they scream. ‘Get on the ground! Lie down!’

From the corner of her eye, Klara can see that the other man who was standing guard has already been overpowered and is lying with his face against the field. Two more police officers are bent over the man who was aiming his gun at Klara.

‘He’s wearing a flak jacket,’ one officer says. ‘Turn him over and cuff him.’

She falls down to her knees, holds her hands above her head and looks at the man in the coat. He’s also on his knees, with his hands on his head.

‘I have diplomatic immunity,’ he screams. ‘You cannot arrest me.’

Suddenly Klara is lying on the AstroTurf with a knee in her back, someone pulling her hands behind her, and she can feel cold steel as her hands are cuffed.

All around her, legs and weapons move under bright and merciless light. Somebody grabs hold of her arms and lifts her brusquely to her feet, leads her away from the light, down a slope and towards a dark, almost deserted parking lot.

They’ve made it about halfway across when two black vehicles roll in, plus an ambulance with no sirens or blue flashing lights. In the darkness by the school, Klara can see two unmarked vans along with some kind of prison transport.