Silva dropped her bag and hugged her mother. They’d always been close, but the past couple of years had reinforced their bond, and Silva had come to depend on her mother throughout her court-martial and during her time in the military prison.

‘I’m still single, Mum. With my prospects I will be for a while, I reckon.’

‘Nonsense.’ Francisca bent and hefted Silva’s bag onto her shoulder. She turned and gestured towards the exits. ‘What about that nice American boy you were seeing?’

‘Were seeing is the operative phrase. He’s past tense.’

‘He dumped you?’

‘No. It was the other way around.’

‘Well.’ Francisca led Silva across the concourse and they emerged into harsh sunlight. She raised a hand at the queue of taxis, and quipped as she did so. ‘There’ll be another one along soon.’

A battered yellow minicab took them into the centre of Tunis along palm-lined roads, Francisca pointing out various sights including the National Bardo Museum, infamous now for the terrorist attack that had taken place there rather than for its collection of wondrous mosaics.

Her mother had ensconced herself in a couple of rooms at a small hotel on the edge of the Medina souk. The hotel’s colonial facade had seen better days but inside the place was clean and tidy, if a little spartan. Francisca apologised for the surroundings.

‘Not like when I was with The Times.’ She walked to the window and opened the shutters. The sounds of the busy street drifted in. ‘In those days my expense account was bottomless.’

‘It’s better than I’m used to,’ Silva said. ‘Home or abroad.’

For a moment the street noise was all there was, Francisca standing by the window before turning.

‘I’m sorry, Rebecca. About what happened. Sorry you’re not over it.’

‘I don’t know if I’ll ever be over it. I don’t think it’s something you can recover from. Perhaps it’s something you’re not supposed to recover from.’

Francisca slipped across the room and embraced her daughter. ‘Hush. What sort of talk is that?’

Silva shrugged. Her mother held her for a moment and then went over to the bed. She sat and patted the mattress. Silva moved across and sat beside her.

‘When you were little, when you were BecBec, you had a rabbit, remember?’

‘Twitch,’ Silva said. ‘He escaped and you said he’d gone to find some bunny friends. Later, when I was older, you told me what really happened: Twitch had been killed by the dog next door.’

‘I think you were eleven or twelve by then. Some of my friends said I was cruel, but I thought it was important to tell you the truth. I wanted you to understand that life could be unpalatable.’

‘The boy in Afghanistan was a kid, Mum, not a rabbit. And it wasn’t next door’s dog that killed him, it was me.’