I can see myself there. See me in my prime. Dark jacket, black jeans, thick woollen hat and leather gloves. Can see myself moving through the headstones and the footpaths without a word. Can see myself sidling in between the big iron gates and ghosting inside the cold, damp tomb.

The radio was waiting for me. So too the reel-to-reel recorder and a little headset. Whoever had left them for me had also gone to the trouble of leaving a tartan blanket and a corned beef sandwich. Walt clearly wanted me to know he appreciated what I was doing.

I drank rum from a hip flask. I ate my sandwich. I read by the light of a torch. I smoked. I checked my watch over and over. A full hour and twenty minutes after the agreed time, the radio crackled into life. I did only as I was instructed. I recorded the communication. But I remember what was said as if it were embossed on the grey matter of my brain.

The voice was American. Texan, if I was any judge. There was appalling static on the line and I fancied I could hear the thrum of a light aircraft’s engines, but if I pressed the headphones against the sides of my skull I could make out most of what was being said.

‘… only a matter of time until they make good on their threats. The numbers don’t matter. They could disappear half the population and still be able to deny it. There’s so much damn jungle that finding evidence is like looking for a grain of salt in the sugar bowl. They think they’re going to scare us away but they don’t know the level of our resolution or what a shepherd owes to his flock …’

Another voice cut in. This one was British. Refined. Officer class.

‘You’ve done enough. Nobody could ask for more. Not even God wants you to give your life, Father.’

‘Don’t tell me what God wants of me,’ came the reply. ‘I never expected God would want me out here. I didn’t grow up believing I could serve Him out in this lawless wilderness. But He has guided me. Pride is sinful, my friend, but I look upon what we’ve achieved these past years and I feel no shame in admitting that I am proud of what we have done. And for these bullying sons of bitches to undo it? To expect my flock to turn their back on their years of hard work and slip away without a backwards glance? To ask me to turn tail and run just because they’ve got the guns and the ugliness of spirit to threaten my life? Hell no.’

There was a pause for a time. I heard the sounds of muffled conversation. Another voice cut in, barely audible but unmistakably female. Then the Englishman spoke again.