Walt pointed at the projector. One of the heavies clicked off the lanterns and the other pointed the projector at the space between the bookshelves. Grainy footage flickered on the wall. I saw a row of crops, lit by an ice-bright moon. Saw soldiers changing out of uniforms and into T-shirts and jeans, pulling on armbands and little scraps of face mask patterned with a symbol I could barely make out. They were laughing as they got changed, pushing one another over, smoking their cigarettes and holding their guns like lovers. Then the footage showed them bouncing around in the back of a truck; eyes bright, leaning forward on their rifles like they were golfers waiting for their turn to take a shot. The footage lurched forward a moment later. Suddenly I was watching a group of men, women and children being led from their little dark houses and into what passed for a main square. I saw chickens fluttering and squawking away in the background. I saw a man trying to wrestle with the soldier who held him and heard myself gasp as two soldiers stepped forward and clubbed him in the side of the head with their rifles. He went down and they struck him again and again until he stopped moving. A little girl ran in front of the camera, her eyes huge, mouth open in a silent scream. The footage lurched again. I had to look away. I couldn’t stand it. From around me I heard the whispers of disgust from the gathered men. I glanced up again. Men were hurting women. Hurting them in the way that there’s no getting better from.

‘Please, gentlemen. Please keep watching.’

They did as Walt said. So did I. Watched as the footage sped up and leapt forward. Now the soldiers were standing at the lip of a great hole in the ground. The soldiers were dragging the bedraggled, half-naked women towards the pit. One carried a small girl by her ankle, dangling her upside down as if she were something for the pot.

One by one, two by two, the men pushed them into the hole. The silence made it somehow even more terrible. I had to imagine the screams; imagine the sobs. Then they stood around, leaning on their rifles, smoking their cigarettes, exhausted by the exertions. Finally a figure stepped into shot. He didn’t look like the others. His skin was pale and although there was no colour in the footage, his moustache looked blonde. This was a white man. A tall, slim-built, white man in combat clothes and beret. He stopped for a moment to survey the scene. The men in the room muttered little exclamations, as if the face was known to them. And then he moved on, and we watched as the soldiers on the screen started shovelling dirt and stone on the people in the deep, deep dark.