‘Just a problem,’ he said and sat heavily down and stared out, arms folded, over the deserted playing fields.

Dyer, left standing, gazed at this big, grave, wood-sawed man with his matted brown hair.

‘A problem you’ve solved?’

Marvar took his time to answer, as if he was choosing a wine. ‘Nearly,’ he said. ‘Nearly.’

The quondam reporter in Dyer recognised the tension in Marvar’s response. A long time ago in Belém, he had heard the same suppressed note in Colonel Rejas’s voice. The tone of someone who wanted to share his excitement, but did not dare to – until Dyer triggered a way to earn his confidence. Not that Rejas’s subsequent confession had advanced Dyer’s career. There came back to Dyer the deranged eye of one Phoenix School mother who, swivelling to peck him with tiny questions about South America, had enquired what his greatest scoop was, and he started to explain that it was a story he had decided not to publish.

Dyer was used to sizing people up. He was quick to see that he and Marvar might like each other. ‘I haven’t noticed you much on the touchline,’ and sat down beside him.

The remark detonated something in Marvar. His eyes returned to the sandpit, his bulky frame trembling inside its loose-fitting coat. ‘And I have chastised myself,’ his hand finding a forehead to clap. He hadn’t been able to watch Samir play as often as he would have liked because of his work. On top of that, he had a new boss, a difficult man. Things were going on at work which had made it impossible to get away. Otherwise, he would have noticed how Samir had been victimised. He looked up at Dyer, mild brown expressive eyes magnified by round wire-framed lenses.

Marvar was agitated, but Dyer sensed that it wasn’t merely what had happened to Samir that was brewing inside him.

‘You mustn’t blame yourself,’ Dyer said in a reasonable tone. ‘I didn’t notice – and I was there.’